WEBVTT - Special Series: The Election Day Massacre. Part 2. 0:00:05.880 --> 0:00:09.680 I'm Sean Braswell. Welcome to Flashback. We're doing something a 0:00:09.720 --> 0:00:12.879 little different in this episode. We're running a special series 0:00:12.920 --> 0:00:16.240 about the worst incident of election violence in American history, 0:00:16.600 --> 0:00:19.720 an event that is almost forgotten today. It happened a 0:00:19.760 --> 0:00:23.840 century ago on election Day nine and the town of 0:00:23.840 --> 0:00:27.680 a Koe, Florida. The victims were hundreds of black residents. 0:00:28.000 --> 0:00:31.680 The perpetrators were their white neighbors. And the reason was 0:00:31.720 --> 0:00:34.560 that black citizens had gone to the polls and tried 0:00:34.600 --> 0:00:51.560 to vote. Our grandmother was one of the most rags females, 0:00:52.520 --> 0:00:58.000 and the word grave is probably not strong enough. She 0:00:58.640 --> 0:01:06.280 was not afraid of anything, nor anybody nobody. That's Janice 0:01:06.360 --> 0:01:10.280 Nelson and her brother, Pastor Stephen Nunne. Their grandmother was 0:01:10.360 --> 0:01:14.520 Caretha Perry Caldwell. She was a constant presence in their 0:01:14.560 --> 0:01:17.959 lives growing up in Tampa, Florida. She just decided, for 0:01:17.959 --> 0:01:21.360 whatever reason, to talk to Steve and I when we 0:01:21.360 --> 0:01:24.440 were kids, to just, you know, tell us this story, 0:01:24.640 --> 0:01:30.160 really the story of what happened in Caretha's hometown of Koe, 0:01:30.200 --> 0:01:46.280 Florida on Election Day nineteen. I remember driving over to 0:01:46.319 --> 0:01:49.640 her home that particular morning because I wanted her to 0:01:49.640 --> 0:01:53.000 make me breakfast. She had the old iron skillet pan 0:01:53.160 --> 0:01:57.200 and she would fry up some reb bacon and grits 0:01:57.240 --> 0:02:00.960 and eggs. Here's what Caretha Perry wanted her grandchildren to know. 0:02:01.880 --> 0:02:05.440 When she was a teenager, her father, Julius July Perry, 0:02:05.560 --> 0:02:09.680 and his good friend Mose Norman were prosperous landowners. There 0:02:09.680 --> 0:02:12.360 were leaders of the sizable black community in a central 0:02:12.360 --> 0:02:16.600 Florida town called the Koe. On election day nineteen twenty, 0:02:16.720 --> 0:02:20.919 Mose Norman tried to vote. A few hours later, an 0:02:21.040 --> 0:02:26.040 armed white mob surrounded the Perry's family farmhouse. Caretha Perry 0:02:26.120 --> 0:02:29.520 told her grandchildren that before long, the white men were 0:02:29.520 --> 0:02:33.880 shooting into the house. It was surreal. I really I 0:02:33.919 --> 0:02:37.240 couldn't believe it. I couldn't wrap my head around it. 0:02:37.280 --> 0:02:40.560 And yet I knew it was real. It makes sense 0:02:40.600 --> 0:02:43.640 to me now. Then it didn't really make sense. You know. 0:02:43.880 --> 0:02:46.800 I knew this, I knew it happened, but I just 0:02:46.880 --> 0:02:49.680 didn't take that in at that time. As a child, 0:02:49.760 --> 0:02:53.560 I couldn't. I couldn't fanthom all of that. Caretha told 0:02:53.600 --> 0:02:56.400 them she was shot in the arm. She wanted me 0:02:56.520 --> 0:03:00.320 to know about the bullet will so she would always 0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:03.480 show me in point to it, and then of course 0:03:03.520 --> 0:03:06.520 after she did that, she would tell me, um, you 0:03:06.560 --> 0:03:09.560 know about what took place. I saw her pain, but 0:03:09.680 --> 0:03:13.040 I also knew she wanted me to know how courageous 0:03:13.040 --> 0:03:15.560 she was, and she was willing to stay there next 0:03:15.560 --> 0:03:18.200 to her dad to the death if it. If it 0:03:18.240 --> 0:03:20.760 was going to take that, she had every intent to 0:03:20.800 --> 0:03:23.359 do that. It hurt her, and yet it drove her 0:03:23.400 --> 0:03:25.560 also to be very angry, and she did not really 0:03:25.560 --> 0:03:29.040 want to mention the name of o Koe or ever 0:03:29.280 --> 0:03:39.960 returned to Okoe again. I'm Eugenius Robinson. You're listening to 0:03:40.000 --> 0:03:45.320 the Election Day Massacre from Ozzie Media. Warning. This episode 0:03:45.360 --> 0:03:54.200 contains graphic descriptions of racial violence. There was some sort 0:03:54.200 --> 0:03:57.360 of a confrontation and they knew that July heard and 0:03:57.440 --> 0:04:01.720 those nominal among the activists, Bobbin thought, so the attention 0:04:01.760 --> 0:04:05.360 of the white people sort of focused on them. Marvin 0:04:05.440 --> 0:04:07.920 Dunn is the author of a history of Florida through 0:04:07.960 --> 0:04:11.760 Black Eyes. The initial group that went out was led 0:04:11.800 --> 0:04:14.760 by an n named Sam Salisberry, who was a well 0:04:14.800 --> 0:04:18.920 known white man, very popular man, not a law enforcement officer, 0:04:19.040 --> 0:04:21.120 but was deputized to go out and find out what 0:04:21.160 --> 0:04:24.760 happened to the the Poles. Sam Salisbury was a veteran, a 0:04:24.880 --> 0:04:29.120 former Army colonel. Marvin Dunn says, a heavily armed white 0:04:29.120 --> 0:04:33.640 man he led to July Perry's farmhouse called themselves a posse. 0:04:34.839 --> 0:04:38.440 Paul Ortiz, a historian at the University of Florida, did 0:04:38.560 --> 0:04:41.360 seminal research on the incident. In a sense, what they're 0:04:41.360 --> 0:04:43.760 trying to just pacify him, to kind of take him 0:04:43.800 --> 0:04:47.120 out of the equation. They feel if they can silence him, 0:04:48.040 --> 0:04:51.520 then they can stop all this voting nonsense and save 0:04:51.600 --> 0:04:56.240 white supremacy. What happened at July Perry's house? Why Why 0:04:56.279 --> 0:04:59.839 did it get so violent so quickly? Pamela Schwartz, chief 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:02.960 your read of the Orange County Regional History Center put 0:05:03.000 --> 0:05:07.000 together a major exhibition of the Koe massacre. Who actually 0:05:07.000 --> 0:05:14.720 shot who? Who actually said what? There's so many different versions. 0:05:15.760 --> 0:05:20.440 July Perry's daughter, Caretha Janice Nelson, and Stephen Nunn's grandmother 0:05:21.120 --> 0:05:24.039 was inside the house when the mob showed up. She 0:05:24.160 --> 0:05:27.120 told me that at a certain point in time, um, 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:31.760 some of the white residents men of the city of 0:05:31.760 --> 0:05:35.280 o Koe came to their home and basically made a 0:05:35.360 --> 0:05:37.680 demand for a father to come outside, and they wanted 0:05:37.720 --> 0:05:40.719 to talk. I've always owned a gun, and you know, 0:05:40.839 --> 0:05:42.839 I grew up in a gun culture. And you know, 0:05:43.040 --> 0:05:45.479 someone comes up to my doorstep and tells me that 0:05:45.600 --> 0:05:48.920 I need to to come out of my house unarmed, 0:05:49.680 --> 0:05:53.080 and they want to talk with me. Um, that's a threat. 0:05:53.640 --> 0:05:57.480 And when Sam Salisbury demanded July Parr to come out 0:05:57.520 --> 0:06:00.160 of this house, Perry came out of his house and 0:06:00.520 --> 0:06:02.760 Um asked to go back inside to get his coat. 0:06:03.360 --> 0:06:10.000 And that's one of this this struggling food. Someone attempted 0:06:10.040 --> 0:06:12.640 to force their way in and there was some gunfire, 0:06:13.080 --> 0:06:16.440 both from Um those outside of the house firing in, 0:06:16.640 --> 0:06:19.240 and from her and her father inside of the house 0:06:19.320 --> 0:06:25.520 firing out. She said that the gunfire was so great 0:06:25.560 --> 0:06:29.320 that you could see the bullet tracers coming through all 0:06:29.960 --> 0:06:32.800 angles in the house, just flying in all over the places. 0:06:33.560 --> 0:06:36.719 Careita was not the only person shot that night. Her 0:06:36.800 --> 0:06:42.000 father was shot multiple times. He told her that he 0:06:42.080 --> 0:06:44.480 wanted her to get her mother and the children out 0:06:44.640 --> 0:06:48.560 of the house. Careita's mother, Estelle, was not in good health. 0:06:49.320 --> 0:06:53.040 Careita's brothers and sister were young children. I felt like 0:06:53.480 --> 0:06:55.680 he was saying, you know what on the captain of 0:06:55.720 --> 0:06:58.280 the ship here and so guess what, you guys, go 0:06:58.440 --> 0:07:00.839 get out if you can. But I've got to stay. 0:07:01.080 --> 0:07:02.800 I think even if he hadn't been wounded he brought, 0:07:02.800 --> 0:07:04.680 he would he was gonna stay in fight to the 0:07:04.680 --> 0:07:12.680 bitter end no matter what. She recalls asking herself and him, 0:07:12.720 --> 0:07:14.760 you know how we're going to get out because they 0:07:14.760 --> 0:07:17.960 were surrounded, and he said, pray, and the Lord I'll 0:07:17.960 --> 0:07:20.000 show you away. And she says she started praying, as 0:07:20.000 --> 0:07:22.320 the Lord, help us to get out of or help 0:07:22.360 --> 0:07:24.920 me to get my mom and my brother's and sister 0:07:25.040 --> 0:07:27.360 out of here. And she said, Um, there was a 0:07:27.360 --> 0:07:30.120 caphole or some type of an open means in the 0:07:30.160 --> 0:07:36.480 bottom of the door. She lifted the little hatch, and 0:07:36.600 --> 0:07:39.400 she said that there was a beam of light light 0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:42.120 from the moon, but it was just this beam of 0:07:42.240 --> 0:07:47.880 light that shined the path through this particular high growth 0:07:48.000 --> 0:07:52.120 or corn field. And she said they proceeded on their 0:07:52.120 --> 0:07:56.360 stomachs to crawl through that path that had been illuminated. 0:07:59.000 --> 0:08:01.720 And she said while they were couli, she said, um, 0:08:01.760 --> 0:08:04.520 we could see the feet of the men who were 0:08:05.040 --> 0:08:07.520 surrounding the home. Some of them, we could literally see 0:08:07.520 --> 0:08:10.360 their feet and we could hear them talking and and 0:08:10.440 --> 0:08:17.840 still firing, and yet they never saw us. Caretha, A Stelle, 0:08:17.880 --> 0:08:21.320 and the children escaped through the field. Members of the 0:08:21.360 --> 0:08:25.400 white mob would later claim that quote thirty seven armed 0:08:25.520 --> 0:08:30.080 negroes in quote participated in the shootout, but it's more 0:08:30.200 --> 0:08:32.360 likely that it was just the Perry family and a 0:08:32.360 --> 0:08:35.800 couple of hired hands who held off the assailants. At 0:08:35.880 --> 0:08:38.280 least six members of the white mob were wounded in 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:41.920 the gun battle. Two others died. They were killed that 0:08:42.080 --> 0:08:45.360 friendless fire. Other white men shot through the house and 0:08:45.480 --> 0:08:50.120 killed their comrades. And I found this out by examining 0:08:50.160 --> 0:08:54.480 the funeral home records of the Manuel Derek, which included 0:08:54.520 --> 0:08:57.559 a note from the sheriff documenting that the men had 0:08:57.559 --> 0:09:00.760 been killed by friendly fire. It's one of the few 0:09:00.800 --> 0:09:03.600 records of what happened that night. You know, there's all 0:09:03.640 --> 0:09:07.520 of these details that will never factually, no, there's just 0:09:07.679 --> 0:09:11.000 no way, because no records and accounts were kept, no 0:09:11.240 --> 0:09:15.760 full investigation was done. Perry's family made it to safety, 0:09:16.000 --> 0:09:20.480 but not for long. July, Perry's wife and daughter, Estella 0:09:20.559 --> 0:09:24.559 and Caretha, respectively, are captured. They're taken to the jail 0:09:24.640 --> 0:09:29.040 in Tampa, Caretha and a Stell were charged with murdering 0:09:29.080 --> 0:09:31.280 the two members of the white mob who were killed. 0:09:32.120 --> 0:09:35.400 The charges were eventually dropped, but not before Caretha and 0:09:35.480 --> 0:09:38.760 her mother had spent a month in jail. She said 0:09:38.800 --> 0:09:41.640 they came in and told them that they were free 0:09:41.679 --> 0:09:46.640 to go, but to never ever return to Okoe again. 0:09:47.559 --> 0:09:51.319 Years later, Careta Perry was asked by an Orlando newspaper 0:09:51.679 --> 0:09:56.800 if she had ever gone back to a Koe. She replied, no, God, 0:09:56.840 --> 0:09:59.320 I don't ever want to see it, not even on 0:09:59.360 --> 0:10:33.200 a map. H In Mildred Board was a little girl 0:10:33.240 --> 0:10:36.920 in the next town over a Papca, Florida. Ms. Board 0:10:36.920 --> 0:10:39.960 has since passed away, but she recorded in oral history 0:10:40.000 --> 0:10:43.200 a few years ago. We're playing excerpts of the courtesy 0:10:43.240 --> 0:10:46.560 of the Orange County Regional History Center. It's one of 0:10:46.640 --> 0:10:49.400 just a few firsthand accounts of the events of that 0:10:49.559 --> 0:10:57.040 election day. The night of the riot, most Non came 0:10:57.200 --> 0:11:02.960 to this house, and I remembered that he had on 0:11:03.080 --> 0:11:08.839 a night shirt. And I don't know whether my dad 0:11:09.160 --> 0:11:11.439 came with him or he got that ball, and they 0:11:11.480 --> 0:11:15.520 brought him on hire and my dad said to him, well, 0:11:15.640 --> 0:11:20.839 most how did you get out of Okoe. He said, 0:11:20.880 --> 0:11:25.400 just like a rabbit in the wind, I shall never 0:11:25.480 --> 0:11:29.440 forget it. Most Norman eskipped from a koe in his car. 0:11:29.720 --> 0:11:32.720 There were reports that he eventually settled up north in 0:11:32.760 --> 0:11:37.320 New York City. July Perry did not escape. He meted 0:11:37.360 --> 0:11:40.360 out of the farmhouse into a nearby sugarcane field, but 0:11:40.440 --> 0:11:45.840 he was soon discovered. His little dog betrayed him. When 0:11:46.440 --> 0:11:52.400 July Perry was shot, he went down in the cane 0:11:52.480 --> 0:11:57.360 padge and Jip was the little dog's name. He went 0:11:57.600 --> 0:12:02.360 down and barred, and that's when the mob found him 0:12:02.520 --> 0:12:08.360 in the king page. The deputized mob arrested Perry. There 0:12:08.400 --> 0:12:13.679 are so many different stories they shot him there, but 0:12:14.320 --> 0:12:21.319 they supposed to have carried him at the two the 0:12:21.400 --> 0:12:26.680 police station in Okoe, but you know that can remember 0:12:26.800 --> 0:12:30.800 there wasn't a police station in the court. More likely 0:12:31.400 --> 0:12:34.280 July Perry was taken to the police station in Orlando, 0:12:34.360 --> 0:12:38.160 a much bigger town. Word gets to Orlando as far 0:12:38.200 --> 0:12:42.360 away as Orlando that there's a Negro uprising. But that's 0:12:42.360 --> 0:12:45.439 a code for Negroes are trying to vote, and so 0:12:45.679 --> 0:12:50.880 Carlo's of white people begin h mobilizing from as far 0:12:50.880 --> 0:12:55.160 away as Orlando. I mean drive to Koe. There's an 0:12:55.160 --> 0:12:59.960 electronic cybordin in Orlando and it's used in election day, 0:13:00.679 --> 0:13:04.360 but not only to tally votes. Then someone changes that 0:13:04.400 --> 0:13:10.760 sign board to direct people to a Koe. Fifty car 0:13:10.840 --> 0:13:14.120 loads of white men from Orlando descended on the black 0:13:14.160 --> 0:13:17.079 neighborhoods and a Kowe. It's like, you know, I'm a 0:13:17.120 --> 0:13:19.920 third generation military veteran, and so when I look at 0:13:19.960 --> 0:13:24.520 places like a Koe, I see intelligence, I see supply, 0:13:26.200 --> 0:13:28.360 I see planning. And what I mean by this is 0:13:28.400 --> 0:13:32.760 that carloads of white individuals, many of them, start from Orlando, 0:13:33.760 --> 0:13:36.439 and they drive all the way into Koe and they 0:13:36.520 --> 0:13:45.440 knew who to target, they knew who the leadership was named. 0:13:45.520 --> 0:13:49.079 Drive to a Koe and they began to torch and 0:13:49.160 --> 0:13:58.160 burn and loot and village this this entire community. That 0:13:58.360 --> 0:14:02.960 evening and into the night, white vigilantes sit fire to 0:14:03.040 --> 0:14:06.920 black people's homes, businesses, and churches. In a cold they 0:14:07.000 --> 0:14:11.240 shot at people trying to escape the flames. I mean, basically, 0:14:11.280 --> 0:14:14.880 people are defending their homes as this white you know, 0:14:14.960 --> 0:14:19.239 para military operation is tearing through their their their neighborhoods. 0:14:19.760 --> 0:14:23.400 People put up a defense in a koe. They don't 0:14:23.440 --> 0:14:27.000 just lay down and offer themselves up today to the 0:14:27.040 --> 0:14:33.040 firing squad, if you will. But we could smell somebody 0:14:33.080 --> 0:14:35.840 say well, how would you smell the smoke? As they 0:14:35.840 --> 0:14:40.120 act can sumel the smoke coming from Africa. So it 0:14:40.360 --> 0:14:44.520 was something that you could sume out of smoke. You 0:14:44.680 --> 0:14:48.160 knew something was going on. It's one of the most 0:14:48.240 --> 0:14:51.720 dramatic days in American history all across the state. You 0:14:51.760 --> 0:14:54.120 know what happens in for it is really an example. 0:14:54.440 --> 0:14:57.560 It's kind of a metaphor for American you know, American 0:14:57.640 --> 0:15:05.680 history and systematic purging, ethnic cleansing of black people. That's 0:15:05.720 --> 0:15:08.120 really the outcome. We don't like to use the term 0:15:08.160 --> 0:15:11.720 ethnic cleansing unless we can use in Eastern Europe, right, 0:15:12.680 --> 0:15:14.400 We don't like to use the word of gram unless 0:15:14.400 --> 0:15:19.000 we can use it in you know, in Africa or 0:15:19.040 --> 0:15:34.320 you know, someplace else. But it happens here. There is 0:15:34.400 --> 0:15:38.040 no way we will ever factually probably know how many 0:15:38.080 --> 0:15:42.160 black people were killed that night. Records were intentionally not kept. 0:15:42.760 --> 0:15:46.200 Given the current research, we as historians will say that 0:15:46.640 --> 0:15:50.520 at least four black people were murdered, but many accounts 0:15:50.520 --> 0:15:54.680 put the death toll much higher. Between thirty and sixty 0:15:54.760 --> 0:16:00.320 black residents were killed. Historian Marvin Dunn, they've learned such 0:16:00.440 --> 0:16:02.720 on the Black Union. We don't know if they were 0:16:02.720 --> 0:16:07.120 suppos burned up to those houses or not. Probably that weren't. Basically, 0:16:07.120 --> 0:16:09.000 you had a choice. You can leave and get shot, 0:16:09.040 --> 0:16:11.760 or you can stay and burn. Uh. And they burned 0:16:11.760 --> 0:16:15.280 to death, and they were put in Popper's caskets and 0:16:15.440 --> 0:16:19.120 buried in a mass grave. Once the white mob started 0:16:19.120 --> 0:16:23.720 burning people's homes and churches, people left. Every single black 0:16:23.760 --> 0:16:27.760 person in a Koe that night, living or visiting, lost something, 0:16:28.520 --> 0:16:31.160 their sense of safety, their home, their property, whether they 0:16:31.160 --> 0:16:35.640 were a renter or a landowner, um sometimes their life. 0:16:36.360 --> 0:16:39.520 Those who survived the flames and gunfire escaped into the 0:16:39.520 --> 0:16:44.160 surrounding swamps. The Florida Times Union reported the next day 0:16:44.200 --> 0:16:48.240 the black survivors were seen walking along highways many miles 0:16:48.240 --> 0:16:51.200 from a Koe. In the weeks and months that followed, 0:16:51.280 --> 0:16:55.320 virtually every single black person fled the town. And then 0:16:55.400 --> 0:16:58.400 it looked like refugees from from a war zone. Now 0:16:58.560 --> 0:17:02.240 those those are the pans. We have people leaving in 0:17:02.320 --> 0:17:09.120 wagons with all of their possessions. White people lining the roads, cheering, jeering, 0:17:10.160 --> 0:17:13.720 you lost. We won. A day that had begun with 0:17:13.840 --> 0:17:16.600 hopes of a better life and a stronger democracy in 0:17:16.640 --> 0:17:20.720 Florida came to an almost unthinkable end as a coe 0:17:20.720 --> 0:17:32.560 burned into the night. Back in Orlando, another violent crowd 0:17:32.600 --> 0:17:37.800 had gathered. July Perry is in mortal danger in the 0:17:37.880 --> 0:17:41.160 jail in Orlando. He is taken by a lynch mom, 0:17:41.280 --> 0:17:45.080 Pamela Schwartz. He is brutalized. There are many versions of 0:17:45.080 --> 0:17:47.879 what happened to him, some very very descriptive and graphic, 0:17:48.440 --> 0:17:52.480 but he is taken, is lynched. He's hanged. If you 0:17:52.640 --> 0:17:56.440 leave a Papa and going through the country Club road 0:17:56.600 --> 0:18:00.480 of block from Colonial, there was an old tree. I 0:18:00.480 --> 0:18:03.000 don't know where's the same old creep, but there is 0:18:03.040 --> 0:18:06.520 a big old tree right now. They are turned him 0:18:06.640 --> 0:18:10.080 up and let him hang from that tree for a wow. 0:18:11.040 --> 0:18:14.040 The tree was near the entrance to the Orlando Country Club, 0:18:14.119 --> 0:18:17.600 by some accounts, in view of the house of John Cheney, 0:18:17.640 --> 0:18:20.520 a white judge who tried to help black citizens of 0:18:20.520 --> 0:18:26.480 a coale vote. The story went that July was intentionally hanged, um, 0:18:26.960 --> 0:18:29.320 you know, in view of Chinese house, but that it 0:18:29.400 --> 0:18:31.439 was across this lake and it was up by Country 0:18:31.440 --> 0:18:35.240 Fund at the time, the way the trees and everything were, 0:18:35.280 --> 0:18:37.080 like when we look back at historic photos of that 0:18:37.160 --> 0:18:39.800 lake in different things like, I don't think anybody could 0:18:39.800 --> 0:18:43.240 have seen anything from the judge's house. So I think 0:18:43.320 --> 0:18:46.800 that that is a thing that became part of the lore. 0:18:47.600 --> 0:18:52.080 But there was an unmistakable message. That's what was about 0:18:52.440 --> 0:18:56.119 historian Paul Ortiz. It was really about sending a lesson 0:18:56.960 --> 0:19:01.040 to the entire black and white and his communities. You know, 0:19:01.040 --> 0:19:03.679 whether it was in the Southwest or in Florida, wherever. 0:19:04.440 --> 0:19:08.480 We're in charge here and we don't follow the law, 0:19:09.400 --> 0:19:13.840 we are the law. A local black undertaker took down 0:19:13.920 --> 0:19:18.840 Perry's corpse from the tree the next day. Oh, he 0:19:18.840 --> 0:19:23.040 had done so many things to his body. There wasn't 0:19:23.119 --> 0:19:28.199 too much left hanging because they had just put his 0:19:28.440 --> 0:19:33.480 body up in pieces, but they took whatever they could 0:19:34.119 --> 0:19:42.240 and am show. They embombed him and they buried him. 0:19:42.280 --> 0:19:45.080 The terror inflicted on the black sessens of a coo. 0:19:45.160 --> 0:19:48.919 We didn't end with election day. The story has always 0:19:48.960 --> 0:19:52.879 gone that everybody left immediately the black community left, they 0:19:52.920 --> 0:19:56.840 never came back. The story after it's far more nuanced 0:19:57.000 --> 0:20:01.520 and horrific. I think personally um then that there's an 0:20:01.560 --> 0:20:04.560 official cover up that goes on for decades after the event. 0:20:04.880 --> 0:20:07.680 There's just so so much to the story. I think 0:20:07.720 --> 0:20:10.800 the most horrific thing is that we don't know, and 0:20:10.880 --> 0:20:15.920 we don't know by design. By design, we don't have records, 0:20:16.040 --> 0:20:18.000 We don't have names for the people who were killed. 0:20:18.080 --> 0:20:20.520 We don't know what homes burned and which ones don't. 0:20:20.680 --> 0:20:22.800 We don't know what happened to people and where they went. 0:20:23.680 --> 0:20:25.720 What we do know is that the terror in a 0:20:25.880 --> 0:20:29.400 Koe was not carried out only by people in masks 0:20:29.400 --> 0:20:33.439 and robes. Much of it was committed openly, and the 0:20:33.520 --> 0:20:36.439 campaign to keep black people from voting in Florida was 0:20:36.520 --> 0:20:39.520 not limited to anonymous letters from the Ku Klux Klan. 0:20:40.440 --> 0:20:44.119 Editorials were printed in the most prominent newspapers in the state. 0:20:44.760 --> 0:20:47.880 When the Atlanto Sentinel, the Mommy Heralds say that white supremacy, 0:20:48.200 --> 0:20:51.639 that our foundation, the foundation of our civilization, White supremacy 0:20:51.720 --> 0:20:56.200 is in danger. We have to take them seriously. And 0:20:56.359 --> 0:20:59.080 when we take them seriously, we realize that they're going 0:20:59.119 --> 0:21:03.160 to do anything they can to break up any challenge 0:21:03.200 --> 0:21:06.800 to their power system. And this is why so many 0:21:06.840 --> 0:21:09.320 white people descend upon it color because they're trying to 0:21:09.400 --> 0:21:13.439 send a lesson to that not only are you not 0:21:13.480 --> 0:21:17.480 going to vote today, You're never going to vote. What 0:21:17.600 --> 0:21:20.800 happened in the Koe was not just about one election. 0:21:21.960 --> 0:21:26.320 What happened next would take years to orchestrate and execute. 0:21:29.600 --> 0:21:33.959 In Part three of the Election Day Massacre, where did 0:21:33.960 --> 0:21:35.960 everybody go? And then you look for the families and 0:21:36.000 --> 0:21:37.879 the histories and you try to find where they are 0:21:37.960 --> 0:21:40.760 today and you can't find people. You can't find them. 0:21:40.800 --> 0:21:44.919 They just lost and gone. Nobody's ever held responsible in 0:21:45.040 --> 0:21:47.360 any way, shape or form for what happens out of Koe. 0:21:47.840 --> 0:21:52.040 It was government supported landa The script is says thou 0:21:52.160 --> 0:21:55.919 shalt not steal. They stole it and they need to 0:21:55.960 --> 0:22:03.439 give it back. M This episode of Flashback, The Election 0:22:03.520 --> 0:22:06.520 Day Massacre was written by Sean Braswell and voiced by 0:22:06.560 --> 0:22:10.760 me Eugene S. Robinson, was produced by Maeve mcgoran and 0:22:11.200 --> 0:22:15.280 or A Oh Diggi Zua. Chris Haff engineered our show. 0:22:29.080 --> 0:22:29.119 H