Yesterday This Was Home: Resolution

The camera slowly pulls back as the narrator talks about his relief and a feeling of vindication. The white couple can be seen behind out protagonist but all the flesh tones are subtle shades of grey through the tinted bus windows. There is no black and white.

This film is now on display at the Orange County Regional History Center (65 East Central Blvd Orlando FL) for the new exhibition, Yesterday This Was Home, about the 1920 Ocoee Voting Day Massacre.

The exhibition is open until February 14, 2021. The 1920 Ocoee Massacre in Orange County, Florida, remains the largest incident of voting-day violence in United States history.

Events unfolded on Election Day 1920, when Mose Norman, a black U.S. citizen, attempted to exercise his legal right to vote in Ocoee and was turned away from the polls. That evening, a mob of armed white men came to the home of his friend, July Perry, in an effort to locate Norman. Shooting ensued. Perry was captured and eventually lynched. An unknown number of African American citizens were murdered, and their homes and community were burned to the ground. Most of the black population of Ocoee fled, never to return.

This landmark exhibition will mark the 100-year remembrance of the Ocoee Massacre. The exhibition will explore not only this horrific time in our community’s history but also historical and recent incidents of racism, hatred, and terror, some right here at home.

The content will encourage reflection on a century of social transformation, the power of perspective, and the importance of exercising the right to vote, and will ask what lessons history can inspire moving forward.

To promote safe distancing, the museum has implemented new ticketing procedures for this special exhibition. For the run of the exhibition, the museum will have extended operating hours to create a safe viewing experience for a greater number of people. On Sundays the museum will open two hours earlier at 10 am. and stay open two hours earlier until 7 p.m. And on Thursdays, we will be open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Election Asteroid

Asteroid 2018VP1 is approximately 6.5 feet in diameter and it is headed towards Earth. It is slated to be withing 300 miles of earth the day before the presidential election in November. NASA‘s Jet Propulsion Laboratory first identified  the asteroid at Palomar Observatory in California in 2018. That explains the 2018 in the name. Perhaps VP stands for Vice President?

The asteroid poses no imminent threat to the earth. Should it enter the atmosphere it would burn up in the atmosphere. The chances of the asteroid actually striking the earth are just 0.41%. But hey this is 2020 them seem like pretty good odds. The orbital graph does not show it hitting the earth. This year’s flyby will be the asteroid’s first close approach to Earth since it was discovered.

Another asteroid will make a close approach on Election Day itself, November 3, 2020. That space rock, dubbed 2020 HF4, is somewhat larger at 26 to 60 feet (8 to 18 m) across, but will remain much, much farther away, about 16 times the distance of the moon. Far more dangerous is asteroid Trump whose orbit if far more unpredictable.

When Donald Trump was asked if he would call on his supporters to stay calm and desist from civil unrest in the immediate aftermath of next month’s election., Trump responded, “I’m urging my supporters to go into the polls and watch very carefully, because that’s what has to happen. I’m urging them to do it.” Since that remake by the president was made, the FBI launched a series of arrests of militia members and others plotting to kidnap the Michigan governor, Gretchen Whitmer, and attack law enforcement.

Don’t let Donald Trump and his minions scare you away from the poles on election day. You will have already survived a near miss from a refrigerator sized piece of cosmic dust.