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Ocoee: Hidden Histories, Racism, Resistance and Reconciliation

The Ocoee Massacre

Ocoee, a small rural town in Central Florida, was the site of one of the worst eruptions of

racial violence in the United States.

In 1920, Ocoee was an

unincorporated town of

approximately eleven hundred

people. Almost half of its citizens

were black, residentially segregated

into the town’s Northern and

Southern quarters. There are

multiple versions of what happened

on November 2, election night, but what in uncontested is that blacks, including black

women, attempted to vote.1

At that time, the radical Republicans, led by a local judge, the Honorable John Cheney, had

been actively organizing the black community to vote. The Klan, as well as the Democratic

Party, was active in discouraging blacks from voting using intimidation, threats and a silent

march by the Klan through the streets of Orlando on the Saturday prior to the election.

Elsewhere in Florida, similar tactics In Daytona Beach, the Klan threatened to burn down

Mary McLeod Bethune’s school (which is now Bethune-Cookman University). Mary McLeod

Bethune stood guard over the schoolhouse with a janitor and the threat never materialized.

The next day, Ms. McLeod-Bethune led 100 blacks, both men and women, to the voting

polls.

1 Information regarding the events surrounding the Ocoee massacre is detailed in contemporaneous accounts from

the Orlando Evening Star-Reporter, the Orlando Morning Sentinel, the New York Times, the New Republic and Crisis: the Magazine of the NAACP. (Dates November 1, 1920 – July 31, 1921). Additional information is available in Orlando Sentinel articles dated September 7, 1986; September 21, 1993, January 19, 1998, the Wall Street Journal October 31, 1998.

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One man, a leader in the community and the owner of an orange grove -reputedly worth

$10,000 was Moses Norman. Norman was refused the right to vote; it was claimed that he

had not paid his poll tax. The Justice of the Peace, who could verify the payment of the tax,

had taken the day to go fishing, reportedly to avoid any confrontation. Mr. Norman left the

polls to consult with Judge Cheney who informed him of his Federal right to vote. Mr.

Norman returned to the polls, with a shotgun in his car (the car itself a symbol of

prosperity). A violent struggle ensued; he was beaten and later disappeared, presumably to

New York.2

At dusk, a mob of whites went to the home of Mr. July Perry, another prominent black – a

foreman of a farm owned by a New Englander. The fear was Mr. Norman remained at the

Perry farm. The characterization of whites as a mob is contested; white residents claimed,

and continue to claim, it was a deputized band of men searching for Mr. Norman. Rifle shots

were exchanged, with reports that women in the Perry family were also responsible. Two

white men died, several others were injured.

A call for all “able-bodied men with guns” as reinforcements went out to Orlando, the

county seat; this call reached as far as Tampa, Florida. Over 200 white men with army-

issued rifles, descended upon Ocoee. Mr. Perry, badly wounded was hiding in the nearby

fields, found and dragged to the Orlando jail. He was forcibly removed from the jail,

lynched, mutilated and later buried in an unmarked grave. Perry’s wife and children fled to

Tampa.

Both the Northern quarters and the Southern quarters were incinerated. A number of black

citizens perished in the fires, including a new mother and her baby. Twenty-six homes, two

churches and a community lodge were burned. The Justice Department sent Walter White

to investigate and it was claimed that between thirty and sixty blacks were killed that night.

Between November 3 and November 28, 1920, over 496 black citizens had disappeared

from Ocoee.

2 Additional information emerged from interviews, primarily black survivors and descents of survivors in

surrounding areas. Interviews were conducted through the period of 1998-1999 by members of Democracy Forum.

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The massacre in Ocoee sent a very powerful message to blacks. It was a warning for blacks

against being prosperous, or exercising their citizen rights. A federal report included that

neither the lynching of July Perry nor the destruction of the town, would “constitute a

violation for rights secured to the Negro under federal constitution or laws, ad

distinguished from the constitution and laws of the state involved.”3 For seventeen years

after the massacre, no black voted in Orange County, Florida. For the next 60 year blacks

did not live in Ocoee.

The Historical Context

During the Civil War (1861 -1865) slavery was abolished by President Lincoln. On Aril 9,

1866 the Civil Rights Act was enacted in defiance of a veto by President Andrew Johnson),

based on the Thirteenth amendment of the Constitution. This ACT was against the “Black

Codes” being enacted by former slave states such Florida which sought to restrict the

liberties of former slaves and other blacks. The “Black Codes” were designed to re-establish

and reinforce white (male) supremacy. The re-segregation of public life rolled back the

political, economic, and social gains made by people as a consequence of the Fourteenth

and Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution. In Florida, as elsewhere in the Southern

Confederate and former slave states, white supremacy was bolstered by racial violence. In

1877, federal troops were withdrawn from the former slave slates leaving black American

unprotected in the face of white racial terrorism.4

The violence in Ocoee mirrored the racial violence across the United States. Race riots and

white terrorism swept through the country during the years after the First World War. The

period between April and October 1917 was termed the “Red Summer” by the National

Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) because of the amount and

severity of race riots. Twenty-five towns and cities experienced racially motivated violence

3 Letter from the Attorney General in “Lynching – Ocoee Florida,” Part 7, Series A, Reel 9, Group 1, Series C,

Administration Files, Box C-353, Papers of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (microfilm edition). 4 Wineapple, Brenda. The Impeachers: The Trial of Andrew Johnson and the Dream of a Just Nation. New York:

Random House. 2019. Litwack, Leon. Trouble in Mind: Black Southerners in the Age of Jim Crow. New York: Alfred Knopf. 1998.

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and more than six thousand died across the nation with widespread destruction of black-

owned property.5

Such racial terrorism made it clear, that even with the abolition of slavery, the law would

serve the interests of whites. Few blacks would have the financial resources or access to

political power to mount successful challenges to a system of white supremacy. In the

United States, black Americans lived in segregated communities until court-ordered de-

segregation of public schools, beginning in 1954 (usually over the vocal and violent

opposition of anti-black groups.)

Democracy Forum

Within this context,

Democracy Form attempted

racial redress in Orange

Country and specifically in

Ocoee. Democracy Forum had

its beginnings as a faith-

based organization,

Dismantling Racism Action

Group or DRAG, based in a

local Unitarian Church. The

Unitarian Church is a non-

denominational Church with a reputation for social and political activism. Initially, an all-

white group, DRAG met and read anti-racism teachings and decided to become involved in

racial issues in the local community. Its activities included tutoring young black student

and adopting a “sister,” predominantly black church.

One black woman, a descendent of a survivor from the Ocoee massacre, and herself a

survivor of the de-segregation battles, became a facilitator for the group. DRAG developed a

proposal to research and educated the public about the Ocoee massacre and its aftermath.

5 Ibid.

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A key element of the project was the decision to restore the stories of women who had

suffered from the massacre and kept the oral history alive. The DRAG proposal was funded

by the Burt and Mary Foundation, a progressive agency committed to grass-roots education

and organization. Meanwhile, the Unitarian Church withdrew its support for unstated

reasons.

Blacks, primarily women helped form Democracy Forum with an explicitly feminist and

anti-racist purpose. Many of the blacks in the organization spoke of the fear experienced

during de-segregation and the concomitant fear of driving through Ocoee. Through

research and activism Democracy Forum was able to locate Mr. July Perry’s grave.

Women, Race and Voting

The intersectionality of race, class and gender (Kimberlé Crenshaw) is clearly evident in

the racism, resistance and reconciliation surrounding the right to vote in 1920’s Ocoee (a

small rural town in Central Florida), and the continuing attempt to come to terms with the

massacre over 100 years later. It is

important to note that 1920 was the

first year women gained their right to

vote in national elections. The

possibility that African-American

women would vote stoked the fears of

the white power structure in the

South. Women were active agents in

the events surrounding the massacre -

it was Mrs. Estelle Perry who aimed a shotgun protecting her family from the “deputized”

forces. Finally, it is women who kept and continue to keep this history alive, see especially

Gladys Franks Bell writing about her father in “Visions through My Father’s Eyes.” Still,

black women are virtually absent from newspaper accounts (both contemporaneous

accounts and later retrospectives), black women are/were not interviewed in research

papers, and black women are made invisible in history.

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Triple forces were arrayed against African-American (and other men of color) and women

of all races and ethnicities in the 1920’s South. (While some cities in Orange County, Florida

had already ensured women’s right to vote in local elections, it is worth noting that Florida

did not ratify the 19th amendment until 1969.

The predominant actors against African-American women’s suffrage included:

 Democrat Party

 The KKK

 White suffragettes

Democratic Party

Although the radical Republicans (such as the Honorable Judge Cheney) argued for

universal suffrage – the state was predominantly Democrat and was committed to both

white supremacy and patriarchy. Typical barriers to voting included having separate

(and inaccessible) doors for white men, white women, black men and black women).

Other practices targeted black women through asking both the age of the voter and the

year of birth. When there was a hesitation or inconsistency – the woman would be

arrested for “perjury”. The fear of black voters – and in particular black women voters is

visible in the headline” Democracy in Duval County Endangered by Very Large

Registration f Negro Women” while the first line of the article read, “Are the people of

Duval County going to permit negro washerwomen and cooks to wield the balance of

power?” (September 16, 1920 – Jacksonville Metropolis).

The Ku Klux Klan

The Klan originally established during Reconstruction was an instrument of terror and

political oppression against blacks – and re-emerged in the period after World War I

with a vengeance in part as a reaction to black men’s independence and increasing

prosperity and in part due black women’s power and political activism. Although the

Klan is nominally separate from the white power structure in the South, there is a great

deal of overlap. It is noted that 80% - 90% of Ocoee and Winter Garden men were

registered members of the Klan. Further, the Klan held a silent march in Orlando the

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Saturday before Election Day and was similarly

present in Daytona Beach where the KKK threatened

to burn the school founded by Mary McLeod

Bethune if black men and women voted. (In

particular note Ida B. Wells work on lynching -

“Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases”.)

During 1920 – as women were fighting for their

right to vote, women were gaining power in other

spheres. One of these spheres was in the Klan. In 1920 white women were invited to

participate as women of the Klan and within that political space advocated for women’s

suffrage. (Here Kathleen Blee’s work on women in the Klan is invaluable).

White Women Suffragettes

The suffragette movement emerged from the abolition movement, as the women’s

movement later emerged from the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960’s (In particular

see Sara Evans with “Personal Politics.” Virtually all suffragettes advocated from

universal abolition; not all abolitionists were suffragettes.

Frederick Douglass was instrumental in demanding the vote for women at the Seneca

Falls Convention in 1484 – however the tension between Douglass, African-Americans

and white women intensified in the run-up to the 15th amendment in which women

leaders such as Elizabeth Stanton and Anna Paul engaged in overt and vocal racism.

The 15th Amendment was ratified but it would be another 50 years for the 19th

Amendment. African-American women were becoming increasingly publically engaged

and politically influential Ida B. Wells, Mary Church Terrell and Mary McLeod Bethune

emerged as leaders of this movement.

Historians such as Roselyn Terborg-Penn have examined this tradition of racism. The

Women’s League of Voter acknowledge exclusionary practices – however the rift and

racism remain

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Conclusions:

 It is of utmost importance to celebrate black women in this struggle – to highlight

their bravery and achievements.

 There needs to as well an understanding of the complexities of racism in the

struggle for the vote.

 Understanding the complexities does not excuse behavior, but it is a necessary pre-

condition for changing the future.

 There should be an awareness of the tendency to divide and conquer among all

groups with claims to power. Thus while white supremacy benefits white women

who then may enjoy the privileges of whiteness – white supremacy benefits white

men even more. It is in the interest of power to keep marginalized groups struggling

amongst each other. A case in point, white women may never have argued as a

group for the right to vote, without the advocacy of Frederick Douglass.

The City of Ocoee has undergone a remarkable transition from a sundown city to what is

described as a sunrise city. A memorial is planned for the 2020 centennial, and a public

sculpture that includes a voting booth is proposed. Further, and most importantly, a formal

proclamation has been issued that resolves “November 2 should be declared a day of

remembrance for those residents of Ocoee and West orange County who lost their lives and

property through an act of domestic terror; and that an future public cultural event held by

the City during the first week of November shall acknowledge the terrible events of

November 1920 that sought to disenfranchise a group of citizens and shall emphasize the

community’s need for cultural diversity. Let it be known that Ocoee shall no longer be the

sundown city but the sunrise city, with the bright light of harmony, justice and prosperity

shining upon all our citizens.”6

Contemporary times find the United States sharply divided over the legacy and reality of

race, class and gender oppression. Through confederate monuments to African-American

memorials and discussion of reparations, the struggle for full democracy continues. Ocoee

6 Ocoee Proclamation, signed and witnessed on the 20

th day of November, 201898 by Mayor Rusty Johnson of

Ocoee.

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is a stark reminder of our violent history, as well as the important of vote. Ocoee, and small

towns like it, may well be able to show us how to find truth and reconciliation;

accountability and forgiveness.