WEBVTT - The Election Day Massacre: 3 Part Special Series Promo 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:03.000 One hundred years ago, in the center of Florida, just 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:06.800 a few miles from where Disney World stands today, there 0:00:07.000 --> 0:00:16.439 was an exodus. Hundreds of black families piled their children 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:20.120 into wagons. They trudged all night along roads and railroad 0:00:20.160 --> 0:00:24.239 tracks and through sugarcane fields. They barely escaped with their lives. 0:00:24.840 --> 0:00:28.520 Dozens of their loved ones did not. They were lynched, shot, 0:00:29.000 --> 0:00:32.440 burned to death in the wreckage of their own homes. 0:00:36.920 --> 0:00:40.760 Today this is forgotten, largely missing from history books, handed 0:00:40.760 --> 0:00:43.960 down only as a secret memory between generations of the 0:00:44.040 --> 0:00:48.519 families who escaped. But in nineteen that November nine, the 0:00:48.560 --> 0:00:52.599 town of Ocoee, Florida, wasn't a secret. It made headlines 0:00:52.640 --> 0:00:56.120 around the world. There was a grand jury investigation, even 0:00:56.120 --> 0:00:59.920 a hearing before Congress, and Americans, black and white, new 0:01:00.120 --> 0:01:03.480 exactly why it had happened. They knew what it meant. 0:01:03.800 --> 0:01:08.360 This exodus was a warning danny black citizen who dared 0:01:08.480 --> 0:01:21.400 to try to vote. I'm Eugene S. Robinson and this 0:01:22.360 --> 0:01:35.800 is the election day massacre from Assie media. In two 0:01:35.840 --> 0:01:40.200 thousand and twelve, Randolph Bracy became the first representative from 0:01:40.200 --> 0:01:43.240 a new state House district in central Florida. Less than 0:01:43.319 --> 0:01:46.160 one sixth of the members of the Florida House were black. 0:01:46.840 --> 0:01:50.360 I I was looking for office space after I won 0:01:50.400 --> 0:01:54.760 my election and I had recently moved to Koe, and 0:01:55.000 --> 0:01:58.000 I decided to put my office in Koe. Koe is 0:01:58.040 --> 0:02:00.680 just a dozen miles from Disney World, but it still 0:02:00.720 --> 0:02:03.960 has the feel of a small town. It's a pretty lake, 0:02:04.240 --> 0:02:07.720 splash park for the kids, beloved ice cream stand, the 0:02:07.800 --> 0:02:10.680 perfect place to live and work. And I remember it 0:02:10.720 --> 0:02:14.919 was an African American woman, older woman, and she almost 0:02:15.000 --> 0:02:16.400 lost it when I told her I was moving my 0:02:16.480 --> 0:02:21.160 office to Koe. But she was from the age where 0:02:21.200 --> 0:02:24.040 she the era where she remembered that it was a 0:02:24.080 --> 0:02:28.440 sundown town where you couldn't be in Okoe unless you 0:02:28.480 --> 0:02:33.360 had some business and you had to be going before dark. Bracy, 0:02:33.600 --> 0:02:37.280 now a Florida State Senator, was shocked, but many people 0:02:37.280 --> 0:02:40.799 who live in the area longer are not. Historian Marvin 0:02:40.919 --> 0:02:44.760 Dunn is professor emeritus at Florida International University. He grew 0:02:44.840 --> 0:02:48.880 up in Central Florida. My father told us told me 0:02:48.919 --> 0:02:53.040 and my brothers about picking oranges in in Okoe when 0:02:53.040 --> 0:02:55.519 they would leave to come back to the land. So 0:02:55.760 --> 0:02:59.560 driver of the white drive at Lndriage until almost dark. 0:02:59.760 --> 0:03:02.520 They would walk out of Oki rather than be caught 0:03:02.680 --> 0:03:06.240 after dark. A Koe is a diverse community today, and 0:03:06.280 --> 0:03:09.920 it had a thriving black population long ago. But for 0:03:09.960 --> 0:03:13.560 half a century a Coe had almost no black residents. 0:03:14.000 --> 0:03:16.080 But this was in the ninety late nineties, and they 0:03:16.120 --> 0:03:20.359 told me, please, don't tell anyone that you're coming here, 0:03:20.400 --> 0:03:22.440 that we've invited you here, that we're showing you where 0:03:22.480 --> 0:03:25.480 the black communities used to be. Paul Ortiz is a 0:03:25.480 --> 0:03:28.560 professor of history at the University of Florida. Don't tell 0:03:28.600 --> 0:03:31.720 anyone because it could put your life in jeopardy. It 0:03:31.720 --> 0:03:35.000 could put us in jeopardy. There are good reasons why 0:03:35.080 --> 0:03:37.760 no black person wants to live there for so many years. 0:03:38.360 --> 0:03:41.840 A Coe resident and community historian pam La Grady, you 0:03:41.880 --> 0:03:44.160 can see that's what happened there. You can feel that 0:03:44.360 --> 0:03:49.000 energy there. It's still it's still alive and well. What 0:03:49.160 --> 0:03:52.240 happened in a Koe a century ago remains the worst 0:03:52.440 --> 0:03:55.920 incident of election day violence in US history. What happened 0:03:55.920 --> 0:03:59.440 in a Koe was not an altercation. It was more 0:03:59.560 --> 0:04:03.000 than a eaching or shooting or riot. What happened in 0:04:03.000 --> 0:04:08.840 the Koe was a massacre and what happened is all 0:04:08.960 --> 0:04:14.480 too relevant today. Florida is still actively involved and vota suppression. 0:04:14.760 --> 0:04:18.080 I didn't even get why she was so scared for me, 0:04:18.960 --> 0:04:21.360 and then I kind of learned the history, and I 0:04:21.440 --> 0:04:23.560 think it's so appropriate to talk about it in this 0:04:23.640 --> 0:04:27.720 year election because it is still to this date of 0:04:27.760 --> 0:04:31.440 bloody is day in American political history have an on 0:04:31.560 --> 0:04:42.719 a presidential election. One hundred years ago, African Americans in 0:04:42.760 --> 0:04:46.920 Florida were preparing for a historic election. Soldiers had come 0:04:46.960 --> 0:04:50.120 home after serving their country in World War One, the 0:04:50.240 --> 0:04:53.720 local economy was booming, women had earned the right to vote. 0:04:53.760 --> 0:04:58.520 The promise of America seemed closer than ever before. And 0:04:58.560 --> 0:05:07.200 then in the night of speakable violence, everything changed. There 0:05:07.240 --> 0:05:09.960 was no question who was in charge in central Florida 0:05:10.000 --> 0:05:14.040 a century ago. Often at the time, many of law 0:05:14.120 --> 0:05:17.440 enforcement and local politicians here were also members of the 0:05:17.480 --> 0:05:20.960 Ku Klux Klan. Pamela Schwartz is the chief curator of 0:05:20.960 --> 0:05:25.080 the Orange County Regional History Center in Orlando, Florida. One 0:05:25.120 --> 0:05:28.160 prominent white citizen at the time estimated that about nine 0:05:29.040 --> 0:05:33.040 of law enforcement officers, judges, and lawyers, and their Coe 0:05:33.200 --> 0:05:36.840 area were clan members. There's a new rise in the 0:05:36.920 --> 0:05:40.760 Ku Klux Klan um. There's a resurgence of white supremacy. Uh, 0:05:40.800 --> 0:05:45.159 there's an active movement for white supremacists to try to 0:05:45.200 --> 0:05:48.960 disenfranchise black voters. In the days leading up to the 0:05:48.960 --> 0:05:53.880 election in November ninety the k k k was especially active. 0:05:54.560 --> 0:05:57.760 There are marches throughout the state of Florida, Jacksonville, Daytona, 0:05:58.000 --> 0:06:01.760 Orlando of Ku Klux Klan sending that same message of 0:06:02.400 --> 0:06:04.479 do you not get out to vote if you're black 0:06:04.720 --> 0:06:09.440 or else? In Orlando, around five hundred hooded men paraded 0:06:09.480 --> 0:06:13.360 behind three figures on horseback. They used megaphones to get 0:06:13.400 --> 0:06:17.560 their message out. Pol Or tease Is, the author of Emancipation, 0:06:17.600 --> 0:06:20.800 betrayed the hidden history of black organizing a white violence 0:06:20.839 --> 0:06:24.480 in Florida from reconstruction to the bloody election of ninety. 0:06:24.960 --> 0:06:28.360 In Daytona, the night before election day, they marched through 0:06:28.560 --> 0:06:34.760 Mary McCloy Bethoon's campus, you know, and the municipal authority 0:06:35.480 --> 0:06:39.760 controlling the electricity actually cut electricity, you know, to Daytona 0:06:39.839 --> 0:06:43.120 Industrial World School so that the clan could march through 0:06:43.160 --> 0:06:48.919 with their torches and terror tactics and and accurately scary. 0:06:49.080 --> 0:06:52.000 It's just all of this stuff is boiling and boiling, 0:06:52.160 --> 0:06:54.839 and the events of November two and third send it 0:06:54.920 --> 0:06:59.800 over the top. This was an event hundreds of years 0:06:59.800 --> 0:07:03.640 in the making, from the first enslavement here up through 0:07:03.720 --> 0:07:07.200 black holes and Jim Crow laws, and the suppression of women, 0:07:07.200 --> 0:07:09.920 the suppression of black voters, the suppression in all these 0:07:09.960 --> 0:07:14.120 different ways leading up to something like this event erupting. 0:07:16.360 --> 0:07:20.200 Five hundred years ago, Florida was under Spanish rule. It 0:07:20.360 --> 0:07:23.320 was a sanctuary if the slaves were able to escape 0:07:23.560 --> 0:07:27.080 the British colonies. But after Florida came under the control 0:07:27.080 --> 0:07:31.400 of the United States in eighteen nineteen, President Thomas Jefferson 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:34.880 sent American troops to help capture former slaves and returned 0:07:34.920 --> 0:07:38.760 them to their chains. Slavery ended with the Civil War, 0:07:38.840 --> 0:07:44.000 but segregation and ideas of white supremacy remained strong. Canta 0:07:44.040 --> 0:07:48.960 Florida was especially attractive to former Confederates. Marvin Dunn is 0:07:49.000 --> 0:07:51.960 the author of a History of Florida Through Black Eyes. 0:07:52.520 --> 0:07:56.840 Santa Florida was a was a magnet for people who 0:07:56.840 --> 0:07:59.720 had lost the Civil War because keep Amy Florida was 0:07:59.760 --> 0:08:02.960 on us by the war uh and sent to Florida 0:08:03.080 --> 0:08:06.120 was out of the cattle got to said the Confederate Army. 0:08:06.200 --> 0:08:09.440 So businessman and sent to Florida made money during the 0:08:09.440 --> 0:08:12.280 war while other parts of the South were being destimated 0:08:12.320 --> 0:08:18.840 by the war. By ninety Florida's economy was booming. The 0:08:19.120 --> 0:08:22.680 citrus industry was exploding. So a lot of black people 0:08:22.680 --> 0:08:25.800 were chanted into Center Florida for that reason to work. 0:08:26.320 --> 0:08:28.960 The town of a Koe, with its lush orange groves 0:08:28.960 --> 0:08:33.599 and farms nestled along Stark Lake, was especially attractive. A 0:08:33.720 --> 0:08:36.880 number of black people, black men in particular, had managed 0:08:36.920 --> 0:08:40.160 to get property orange rose on their own. There's a 0:08:40.200 --> 0:08:43.360 man by the name of Moses Norman. Now Moses Norman 0:08:43.400 --> 0:08:46.640 had lived in this community for some thirty years. He 0:08:46.760 --> 0:08:49.319 was not just some you know, young guy. He was 0:08:49.360 --> 0:08:52.520 a well established individual, well known in town. He had 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:55.040 his own car. He was known to be a labor broker. 0:08:55.480 --> 0:08:58.360 Most Norman at the time was driving around in a 0:08:58.440 --> 0:09:01.559 car that was worth about semi five to her thousand dollars. 0:09:01.760 --> 0:09:05.280 Pamela Grady is the executive director of the July Perry Foundation. 0:09:05.640 --> 0:09:09.040 That's a Mercedes, that's a Jaguar, you know, That's what 0:09:09.160 --> 0:09:11.280 he was driving around in at a time when nobody 0:09:11.280 --> 0:09:13.760 even had cars. There was only maybe one or two 0:09:13.760 --> 0:09:16.320 other cars in the whole town of a Koe, you know, 0:09:16.320 --> 0:09:19.800 and here's this black guy driving through the town, this 0:09:20.000 --> 0:09:22.560 nice car. You know. They had to infuriate them. The 0:09:22.600 --> 0:09:25.960 foundation is named for Most Norman's good friend, another prominent 0:09:26.000 --> 0:09:30.440 Bleaxis and of a Koe, Julius July Perry. Nothing really 0:09:30.480 --> 0:09:34.480 happened in ol Koe without him. Florida State Senator Randolph Bracy. 0:09:34.760 --> 0:09:36.640 He was kind of like a broker or even white 0:09:36.640 --> 0:09:40.840 businessman who wanted to come in and do some farming 0:09:41.640 --> 0:09:44.760 transactions of what have you. He ran the town. July 0:09:45.000 --> 0:09:48.560 Perry and most Norman were pillars of the Koe community. 0:09:48.920 --> 0:09:52.920 His story and Paul artis, they were successful individuals. They're 0:09:53.000 --> 0:09:56.760 very hard workers, they were they're very good family men. Um. 0:09:56.800 --> 0:10:00.120 They were highly respected. And the reason I mentioned m 0:10:00.240 --> 0:10:02.439 highly respected. And this is the most important element I 0:10:02.480 --> 0:10:05.160 think about Most Norman and life arean Why why they 0:10:05.200 --> 0:10:09.600 represent such a threat to white supremacy, Because these two 0:10:09.679 --> 0:10:13.839 exceptionally respected men were involved in an exceptionally threatening activity 0:10:14.360 --> 0:10:19.840 helping black citizens vote. In the wake at World War One, 0:10:21.040 --> 0:10:27.280 black Fluoridians had organized a remarkable statewide voter registration movement, 0:10:27.960 --> 0:10:33.360 and the movement really crested and built momentum as African 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:37.000 American soldiers returned from from Europe. A lot of Black 0:10:37.040 --> 0:10:40.480 lessons came back to the South and the third in Europe, 0:10:40.520 --> 0:10:44.240 and they were not blando commodate themselves to the racism 0:10:44.280 --> 0:10:47.040 that was in there in that community, and most Norman 0:10:47.640 --> 0:10:50.560 latter in particular, were among those who came back with 0:10:50.600 --> 0:10:54.640 that attitude. The two veterans joined hundreds of other Fluoridians 0:10:54.679 --> 0:10:58.440 who were mobilizing to combat white supremacy. In nineteen twenty, 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:01.640 there is a shoot black voter registration drive that's supported 0:11:01.679 --> 0:11:04.960 not only by the black community, but also by white Republicans, 0:11:05.240 --> 0:11:07.920 not all of them, most of them. This was at 0:11:07.920 --> 0:11:11.160 a time when most African Americans were members of Abraham 0:11:11.240 --> 0:11:15.360 Lincoln's Republican Party. In many places in the South, blacks 0:11:15.400 --> 0:11:18.520 could not even join the Democratic Party. And thanks to 0:11:18.559 --> 0:11:21.320 the Nineteenth Amendment, women would be voting for president for 0:11:21.360 --> 0:11:24.800 the first time in nineteen twenty. This is a whole 0:11:24.840 --> 0:11:28.760 new voting block and that includes black women. And what 0:11:28.840 --> 0:11:32.160 it's doing is it's causing a lot of tension. People 0:11:32.480 --> 0:11:36.120 don't always accept change. Uh. And so with this you 0:11:36.160 --> 0:11:38.880 also see sort of a resurgence and an ongoing rise 0:11:38.920 --> 0:11:42.520 with white supremacy in the ku Klux Klan clan members 0:11:42.600 --> 0:11:45.800 were not the only white supremacists trying to hold back 0:11:45.840 --> 0:11:49.640 the new wave of black voters. Once the white you know, 0:11:49.640 --> 0:11:52.440 white white elites and white media and white leaders realized 0:11:52.480 --> 0:11:55.960 this is happening, they use their off ed space, their 0:11:56.080 --> 0:12:00.760 their banner headlines. White women, it's to you to save 0:12:00.800 --> 0:12:06.719 the republic. This is the greatest crisis in our nation's history. 0:12:07.240 --> 0:12:11.560 And a typical op ed will say, h white ladies, 0:12:12.840 --> 0:12:16.760 do you want your Negro washer woman to lord over you, 0:12:17.760 --> 0:12:23.040 to take control? Do you want that Negro custodian to 0:12:23.360 --> 0:12:27.920 marry your daughter? The threats heated up as the election approached. 0:12:28.400 --> 0:12:33.439 White supremacies in a crisis, they're much more honest and 0:12:33.679 --> 0:12:37.200 races today because they're very blunt about it. They're like, 0:12:37.240 --> 0:12:41.040 white supremacy is our way of life as an American. 0:12:41.960 --> 0:12:45.320 Some white Republicans in Orlando, including a local judge named 0:12:45.400 --> 0:12:49.640 John Cheney, helped July Perry and Most Norman organized black 0:12:49.720 --> 0:12:53.400 voters about a month before the echoing massacre. They receive 0:12:53.440 --> 0:12:56.640 a letter from the Florida ku Klux Klan signed by 0:12:56.679 --> 0:13:02.480 the ku Klux Klan that basically says stop or else, sir, 0:13:03.400 --> 0:13:06.960 while stopping in your beautiful little city this week, I 0:13:07.120 --> 0:13:09.680 was informed that you are in the habit of going 0:13:09.720 --> 0:13:14.880 out among the negroes of Orlando and delivering lectures explaining 0:13:14.880 --> 0:13:18.920 to them how to assert their rights. The grand Master 0:13:19.120 --> 0:13:21.840 of the Florida ku Klux Klan reminded them what happened 0:13:21.840 --> 0:13:25.440 when white people tried to help black voters during reconstruction. 0:13:26.240 --> 0:13:29.600 You will remember that these things forced the loyal citizens 0:13:29.640 --> 0:13:33.640 of the South to organize clans of determined men who 0:13:33.640 --> 0:13:38.480 pledge themselves to maintain white supremacy and to safeguard our 0:13:38.600 --> 0:13:43.960 women and children. We shall always enjoy white supremacy in 0:13:44.000 --> 0:13:49.120 this country, and he who interferes must face the consequences. 0:13:49.160 --> 0:13:51.400 So there is a threat, there is and this is 0:13:51.440 --> 0:13:53.240 a this is a primary Schurich. We have the original 0:13:53.320 --> 0:13:58.920 in our museum collection that that that states this. Just 0:13:59.200 --> 0:14:02.320 days before were the Echoe massacre. There are marches throughout 0:14:02.360 --> 0:14:04.840 the state of Florida. If you ask a black person 0:14:04.920 --> 0:14:10.520 to register about Florida, you're asking them to take the risk. 0:14:10.679 --> 0:14:13.280 They're asking them to risk their lives. You're asking them 0:14:13.320 --> 0:14:15.840 to risk their livelihoods, You're asking them to risk their 0:14:15.880 --> 0:14:23.040 physical safety. On the morning of November, two black citizens 0:14:23.040 --> 0:14:27.360 of a Koe, Florida, made a heroic decision. They ignored 0:14:27.360 --> 0:14:31.600 the clan marches, the torches, the letters, and the threats. 0:14:32.480 --> 0:14:37.520 They prepared to exercise their most fundamental democratic right to vote. 0:14:38.200 --> 0:14:41.240 They knew it would be challenging, but they had no 0:14:41.360 --> 0:14:49.640 idea of the horrors that awaited them. You can hear 0:14:49.680 --> 0:14:54.000 the election Day massacre miniseries just search for flashback wherever 0:14:54.040 --> 0:14:55.320 you find your podcasts.