WEBVTT - Special Series: The Election Day Massacre, Part 2 0:00:00.400 --> 0:00:03.279 As we draw closer to June tenth. On June nineteenth, 0:00:03.520 --> 0:00:06.600 the anniversary of the day when enslaved people in Texas 0:00:06.680 --> 0:00:10.600 were emancipated two and a half years after the Emancipation 0:00:10.640 --> 0:00:14.240 Proclamation was signed, we offer a remarkable story of the 0:00:14.280 --> 0:00:17.439 black residents of a small town in Florida who fought 0:00:17.520 --> 0:00:20.840 for their right to vote a century ago. This three 0:00:20.840 --> 0:00:23.680 part limited series is brought to you by Procter and Gamble. 0:00:24.120 --> 0:00:27.639 Procter and Gamble believes that words alone won't create change, 0:00:28.040 --> 0:00:32.560 but stories do seek share and expect the whole truth 0:00:32.640 --> 0:00:36.480 of black life. Widen the screen to widen our view. 0:00:46.520 --> 0:00:53.280 Our grandmother was one of the most greatest females, and 0:00:53.760 --> 0:00:59.440 the word grave is probably not strong enough. She was 0:00:59.640 --> 0:01:07.440 not afraid of anything, nor anybody nobody. That's Janice Nelson 0:01:07.480 --> 0:01:11.560 and her brother, Pastor Stephen Nunne. Their grandmother was Caretha 0:01:11.720 --> 0:01:15.600 Perry Caldwell. She was a constant presence in their lives 0:01:15.640 --> 0:01:19.520 growing up in Tampa, Florida. She just decided, for whatever reason, 0:01:20.040 --> 0:01:22.679 to talk to Steve and I when we were kids, 0:01:23.280 --> 0:01:27.720 to just, you know, tell us this story, really, the 0:01:27.840 --> 0:01:31.400 story of what happened in Caretha's hometown of Koe, Florida, 0:01:31.800 --> 0:01:47.000 on election Day nineteen twenty. I remember driving over to 0:01:47.040 --> 0:01:50.320 her home that particular morning because I wanted her to 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:53.720 make me breakfast. She had the old iron skillet pan 0:01:53.840 --> 0:01:57.920 and she would fry up some reb bacon and grits 0:01:57.920 --> 0:02:01.680 and eggs. Here's what Careta Perry wanted her grandchildren to know. 0:02:02.600 --> 0:02:06.160 When she was a teenager, her father, Julius July Perry, 0:02:06.280 --> 0:02:10.400 and his good friend Mose Norman were prosperous landowners. There 0:02:10.400 --> 0:02:13.080 were leaders of the sizable black community in a central 0:02:13.080 --> 0:02:17.320 Florida town called the Koe. On election day nineteen twenty, 0:02:17.440 --> 0:02:21.640 Mose Norman tried to vote. A few hours later, an 0:02:21.760 --> 0:02:26.760 armed white mob surrounded the Perry's family farmhouse. Caretha Perry 0:02:26.800 --> 0:02:30.200 told her grandchildren that before long, the white men were 0:02:30.240 --> 0:02:34.600 shooting into the house. It was surreal. I really I 0:02:34.600 --> 0:02:37.920 couldn't believe it. I couldn't wrap my head around it. 0:02:38.000 --> 0:02:41.280 And yet I knew it was real. It makes sense 0:02:41.320 --> 0:02:44.360 to me now, then it didn't really make sense. You know. 0:02:44.560 --> 0:02:47.520 I knew this, I knew it happened, but I just 0:02:47.600 --> 0:02:50.400 didn't take that in at that time. As a child, 0:02:50.480 --> 0:02:54.280 I couldn't. I couldn't panthom all of that Caretha told 0:02:54.280 --> 0:02:57.120 them she was shot in the arm. She wanted me 0:02:57.240 --> 0:03:01.040 to know about the bullet wound, so she would always 0:03:01.120 --> 0:03:04.160 show me in point to it, and then of course 0:03:04.240 --> 0:03:07.240 after she did that, she would tell me, um, you 0:03:07.240 --> 0:03:10.280 know about what took place. I saw her pain, but 0:03:10.360 --> 0:03:13.760 I also knew she wanted me to know how courageous 0:03:13.760 --> 0:03:16.239 she was, and she was willing to stay there next 0:03:16.280 --> 0:03:18.920 to her dad to the death if it if it 0:03:18.960 --> 0:03:21.440 was going to take that, she had every intent to 0:03:21.520 --> 0:03:24.040 do that. It hurt her, and yet it drove her 0:03:24.080 --> 0:03:26.200 also to be very angry, and she did not really 0:03:26.280 --> 0:03:29.760 want to mention the name of O Koe or ever 0:03:30.000 --> 0:03:40.600 returned to O Koe again. I'm Eugenius Robinson. You're listening 0:03:40.600 --> 0:03:45.440 to the election Day massacre from Ozzie Media. Warning, this 0:03:45.480 --> 0:03:54.640 episode contains graphic descriptions of racial violence. There was some 0:03:54.720 --> 0:03:57.480 sort of a confrontation, and they knew that July Hear 0:03:58.000 --> 0:04:00.800 and those nominal among the activists of I've been voting, 0:04:01.280 --> 0:04:04.560 so the attention of the white people sort of focused 0:04:04.560 --> 0:04:07.680 on them. Marvin Dunn is the author of a history 0:04:07.720 --> 0:04:11.440 of Florida through Black Eyes. The initial group that went 0:04:11.440 --> 0:04:15.000 out was led by a man named Sam Salisberry, who 0:04:15.000 --> 0:04:18.520 was a well known white man, very popular man, not 0:04:18.600 --> 0:04:21.160 a law enforcement officer, but was depotas to go out 0:04:21.200 --> 0:04:24.400 and find out what happened to the pole. Sam Salisbury 0:04:24.560 --> 0:04:28.520 was a veteran, a former Army colonel. Marvin Dunn says, 0:04:28.560 --> 0:04:31.520 a heavily armed white man he led to July Perry's 0:04:31.560 --> 0:04:37.360 farmhouse called themselves a posse. Paul Ortis, a historian at 0:04:37.360 --> 0:04:40.920 the University of Florida, did seminal research on the incident. 0:04:41.320 --> 0:04:43.440 In a sense where they're trying to just pacify him, 0:04:43.520 --> 0:04:46.240 to kind of take him out of the equation. They 0:04:46.240 --> 0:04:49.680 feel if they can silence him, then they can stop 0:04:49.720 --> 0:04:54.839 all this voting nonsense and save white supremacy. What happened 0:04:54.920 --> 0:04:57.560 at July Perry's house? Why Why did it get so 0:04:57.680 --> 0:05:01.560 violent so quickly? Pemla Schwartz, chief curate of the Orange 0:05:01.560 --> 0:05:05.279 County Regional History Center, put together a major exhibition of 0:05:05.320 --> 0:05:09.960 the Koe massacre. Who actually shot who? Who actually said what? 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:19.200 There's so many different versions. July Perry's daughter, Caretha Janice 0:05:19.279 --> 0:05:23.240 Nelson and Stephen Nunn's grandmother was inside the house when 0:05:23.240 --> 0:05:26.039 the mob showed up. She told me that at a 0:05:26.080 --> 0:05:29.880 certain point in time, Um, some of the white residents 0:05:30.440 --> 0:05:33.880 men of the city of o Koe came to their 0:05:33.920 --> 0:05:37.920 home and basically made a demand for father to come outside, 0:05:37.960 --> 0:05:40.440 and they wanted to talk. I've always owned a gun, 0:05:41.000 --> 0:05:42.640 and you know, I grew up in a gun culture. 0:05:42.760 --> 0:05:45.599 And you know, someone comes up to my doorstep and 0:05:45.640 --> 0:05:48.080 tells me that I need to to come out of 0:05:48.120 --> 0:05:52.960 my house unarmed, and they want to talk with me. Um, 0:05:53.000 --> 0:05:57.720 that's a threat. And when Sam Salisbury demanded July Parry 0:05:57.800 --> 0:05:59.520 to come out of this house, Parry came out of 0:05:59.520 --> 0:06:02.840 his house and Um asked to go back inside and 0:06:02.880 --> 0:06:06.640 get his coat. And that's one of this this struggling food. 0:06:10.000 --> 0:06:12.599 Someone attempted to force their way in and there was 0:06:12.640 --> 0:06:16.520 some gunfire, both from um those outside of the house 0:06:16.560 --> 0:06:19.680 firing in, and from her and her father inside of 0:06:19.680 --> 0:06:25.640 the house firing out. She said that the gunfire was 0:06:25.680 --> 0:06:29.400 so great that you could see the bullet tracers coming 0:06:29.400 --> 0:06:33.080 through all angles in the house, just flying all over 0:06:33.120 --> 0:06:37.000 the places. Careita was not the only person shot that night. 0:06:37.240 --> 0:06:42.520 Her father was shot multiple times. He told her that 0:06:42.600 --> 0:06:44.960 he wanted her to get her mother and the children 0:06:44.960 --> 0:06:48.640 out of the house. Careita's mother, Estelle, was not in 0:06:48.720 --> 0:06:53.200 good health Careita's brothers and sister were young children. I 0:06:53.279 --> 0:06:55.919 felt like he was saying, you know what on the 0:06:55.960 --> 0:06:58.800 captain of the ship here, and so guess what, you guys, 0:06:58.839 --> 0:07:01.560 go get out if you can, But I've got to stay. 0:07:01.760 --> 0:07:03.800 I think even if he hadn't been wounded, he probably would. 0:07:03.880 --> 0:07:05.800 He was gonna stay in fight to the bitter end 0:07:05.839 --> 0:07:13.520 no matter what. She recalls asking herself and him, you 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:16.240 know how we're going to get out because they were surrounded, 0:07:16.760 --> 0:07:19.280 and he said, pray, and the Lord I'll show you away. 0:07:19.320 --> 0:07:21.679 And she says she started praying, as the Lord, help 0:07:21.800 --> 0:07:23.520 us to get out of or help me to get 0:07:23.880 --> 0:07:26.240 my mom and my brother's and sister out of here. 0:07:26.720 --> 0:07:28.720 And she said, um, there was a cat hoole or 0:07:28.760 --> 0:07:31.760 some type of an opening in the bottom of the door. 0:07:32.280 --> 0:07:38.280 She lifted the little hatch, and she said that there 0:07:38.320 --> 0:07:41.200 was a beam of light like from the moon, but 0:07:41.280 --> 0:07:44.480 it was just this beam of light that shined the 0:07:44.640 --> 0:07:51.160 path through this particular high growth or corn field. And 0:07:51.240 --> 0:07:54.680 she said they proceeded on their stomachs to crawl through 0:07:54.720 --> 0:08:00.440 that path that had been illuminated. And she said while 0:08:00.440 --> 0:08:03.160 they were calling. She said, Um, we could see the 0:08:03.280 --> 0:08:06.720 feet of the men who were surrounding the home. Some 0:08:06.800 --> 0:08:08.920 of them, we could literally see their feet, and we 0:08:08.960 --> 0:08:12.920 could hear them talking and and still firing, and yet 0:08:13.320 --> 0:08:19.840 they never saw us. Caretha Estelle and the children escaped 0:08:19.920 --> 0:08:23.200 through the field. Members of the white mob would later 0:08:23.280 --> 0:08:28.560 claim that quote thirty seven armed negroes in quot participated 0:08:28.600 --> 0:08:31.680 in the shootout, but it's more likely that it was 0:08:31.760 --> 0:08:34.160 just the Perry family and a couple of hired hands 0:08:34.160 --> 0:08:37.640 who held off the assailants. At least six members of 0:08:37.640 --> 0:08:40.360 the white mob were wounded in the gun battle. Two 0:08:40.440 --> 0:08:44.640 others died. They were killed that friendless fire. Other white 0:08:44.720 --> 0:08:48.760 men shot through the house and killed their comrades. And 0:08:48.840 --> 0:08:52.320 I found us out by examining the funeral home records 0:08:52.320 --> 0:08:55.840 of the Manuel They which included a note from the 0:08:55.880 --> 0:08:59.959 sheriff documenting that the men had been killed that friendly fire. 0:09:00.600 --> 0:09:03.200 It's one of the few records of what happened that night. 0:09:03.679 --> 0:09:07.520 You know, there's all of these details that will never factually, no, 0:09:07.800 --> 0:09:11.640 there's just no way, because no records and accounts were kept, 0:09:11.640 --> 0:09:16.439 no full investigation was done. Perry's family made it to safety, 0:09:16.720 --> 0:09:20.719 but not for long. July, Perry's wife and daughter, a 0:09:20.840 --> 0:09:24.880 Stella and Caretha, respectively, are captured. They're taken to the 0:09:24.960 --> 0:09:29.040 jail in Tampa. Careta and a Stell were charged with 0:09:29.280 --> 0:09:31.960 murdering the two members of the white mob who were killed. 0:09:32.840 --> 0:09:36.120 The charges were eventually dropped, but not before Caretha and 0:09:36.200 --> 0:09:39.480 her mother had spent a month in jail. She said 0:09:39.520 --> 0:09:42.360 they came in and told them that they were free 0:09:42.400 --> 0:09:47.320 to go, but to never ever returned to Oh Koe again. 0:09:48.280 --> 0:09:52.000 Years later, Careta Perry was asked by an Orlando newspaper 0:09:52.360 --> 0:09:57.520 if she had ever gone back to Koe. She replied, no, God, 0:09:57.559 --> 0:10:00.080 I don't ever want to see it, not even on 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:32.800 a map. This three part limited series is brought to 0:10:32.840 --> 0:10:36.080 you by Procter and Gamble. Procter and Gamble believes that 0:10:36.120 --> 0:10:41.320 words alone won't create change, but stories do seek share 0:10:41.400 --> 0:10:44.720 and expect the whole truth of black life. Widen the 0:10:44.760 --> 0:10:51.320 screen to widen our view. In Mildred Board was a 0:10:51.320 --> 0:10:54.320 little girl in the next town over a Popca, Florida. 0:10:55.080 --> 0:10:57.719 Ms Board has since passed away, but she recorded in 0:10:57.920 --> 0:11:01.240 oral History a few years ago. We're playing excerpts of 0:11:01.240 --> 0:11:04.880 the courtesy of the Orange County Regional History Center. It's 0:11:04.920 --> 0:11:07.280 one of just a few first hand accounts of the 0:11:07.320 --> 0:11:11.640 events of that election day. The night of the riot, 0:11:13.440 --> 0:11:20.680 most Non came to this house, and I remembered that 0:11:20.760 --> 0:11:26.439 he had on a nightshirt. And I don't know whether 0:11:26.520 --> 0:11:29.800 my dad came with him or he got that fall. 0:11:29.840 --> 0:11:33.320 And they brought him on here, and my dad said 0:11:33.360 --> 0:11:38.760 to him, well, molest how did you get out of Okoe? 0:11:38.960 --> 0:11:43.040 He said, just like a rabbit in the wind. I 0:11:43.040 --> 0:11:47.280 shall never forget it. Most Norman escaped from a koe 0:11:47.440 --> 0:11:50.400 in his car. There were reports that he eventually settled 0:11:50.480 --> 0:11:54.840 up north in New York City. July Perry did not escape. 0:11:55.400 --> 0:11:57.800 He made it out of the farmhouse into a nearby 0:11:57.840 --> 0:12:02.440 sugarcane field, but he was soon discovered. His little dog 0:12:02.559 --> 0:12:09.920 betrayed him. When July Perry was shot, he went down 0:12:10.400 --> 0:12:14.920 in the cane page and Jip was the little dog's name. 0:12:15.480 --> 0:12:19.840 He went down and barred, and that's when the mob 0:12:20.320 --> 0:12:26.400 found him in the cane page. The deputized mob arrested Perry. 0:12:26.800 --> 0:12:32.360 There's so many different stories they shot him there, but 0:12:32.920 --> 0:12:37.280 they supposed to have care of him. A thought two 0:12:38.160 --> 0:12:44.480 the police station in Okoe. But you know, as I 0:12:44.600 --> 0:12:47.600 can remember, there wasn't a police station in the course. 0:12:48.760 --> 0:12:52.199 More likely July Perry was taken to the police station 0:12:52.240 --> 0:12:56.400 in Orlando, a much bigger town. Word gets to Orlando, 0:12:56.520 --> 0:12:59.920 as far away as Orlando that there's a Negro uprise. 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:03.160 Same but that's a code for negroes are trying to vote, 0:13:03.720 --> 0:13:08.920 and so carloads of white people begin h mobilizing from 0:13:09.200 --> 0:13:13.080 as far away as Orlando. I mean, drive to a koe. 0:13:13.440 --> 0:13:17.880 There's an electronic synboard in Orlando and it's used on 0:13:17.960 --> 0:13:22.000 election day, but not only to tally of votes. Then 0:13:22.040 --> 0:13:24.920 someone changes that sign board to direct people to a koe. 0:13:26.360 --> 0:13:32.199 All right, fifty carloads of white men from Orlando descended 0:13:32.200 --> 0:13:35.480 on the black neighborhoods and a kowe. It's like, you know, 0:13:35.480 --> 0:13:38.240 I'm a third generation military veteran, and so when I 0:13:38.240 --> 0:13:42.440 look at places like a KOE, I see intelligence, I 0:13:42.520 --> 0:13:46.600 see supply, I see planning. And what I mean by 0:13:46.679 --> 0:13:50.439 this is that carloads of white individuals, many of them, 0:13:50.440 --> 0:13:54.319 start from Orlando, and they drive all the way into Koe, 0:13:54.800 --> 0:13:57.240 and they knew who to target, they knew who the 0:13:57.320 --> 0:14:06.720 leadership was. Then drive to a Koe and they begin 0:14:06.840 --> 0:14:11.760 to torch and burn and loot and village, this this 0:14:11.960 --> 0:14:20.720 entire community. That evening and into the night, white vigilantes 0:14:20.840 --> 0:14:24.120 sit fire to black people's homes, businesses, and churches in 0:14:24.160 --> 0:14:28.480 a cobe. They shot at people trying to escape the flames. 0:14:29.080 --> 0:14:31.880 I mean, basically, people are defending their homes as this 0:14:32.000 --> 0:14:36.280 white you know, pair of military operation is tearing through 0:14:36.320 --> 0:14:40.400 their their their neighborhoods. People put up a defense in 0:14:40.720 --> 0:14:44.640 a koe. They don't just lay down and offer themselves 0:14:44.720 --> 0:14:49.120 up today to the firing squad, if you will. But 0:14:49.320 --> 0:14:53.160 we could smell somebody say, well, how would you smell 0:14:53.280 --> 0:14:56.120 the smoke as they act and smell the smoke coming 0:14:56.160 --> 0:15:01.200 from Africa. So it was some thing that you could 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:05.000 swme out with smoke. You knew something was going on. 0:15:06.160 --> 0:15:08.400 It's one of the most dramatic days in American history 0:15:08.520 --> 0:15:11.280 all across the state. You know what what happens in 0:15:11.360 --> 0:15:13.560 fo It is really an example. It's kind of a 0:15:13.560 --> 0:15:20.080 metaphor for American you know, American history and the systematic purging, 0:15:21.200 --> 0:15:25.760 ethnic cleansing of black people. That's really the outcome. We 0:15:25.800 --> 0:15:28.880 don't like to use the term ethnic cleansing unless we 0:15:28.920 --> 0:15:31.760 can use in Eastern Europe, right, We don't like to 0:15:31.840 --> 0:15:33.600 use the word wrong unless we can use it in 0:15:34.680 --> 0:15:38.880 you know, in Africa or you know, someplace else, but 0:15:39.360 --> 0:15:54.040 it happens here. There is no way we will ever 0:15:54.160 --> 0:15:58.000 factually probably know how many black people were killed that night. 0:15:58.840 --> 0:16:02.720 Records were intentionally they not kept. Given the current research, 0:16:02.800 --> 0:16:06.480 we as historians will say that at least four black 0:16:06.520 --> 0:16:09.960 people were murdered, but many accounts put the death toll 0:16:10.200 --> 0:16:14.840 much higher. Between thirty and sixty black residents were killed, 0:16:16.120 --> 0:16:19.280 historian Marvin Dunn. They burned the whole section of the 0:16:19.280 --> 0:16:22.120 black community. We don't know if these spokes burned up 0:16:22.120 --> 0:16:25.840 to those houses or not. Probably that weren't. Basically, you 0:16:25.880 --> 0:16:27.760 had a choice. You can leave and get shot, or 0:16:27.800 --> 0:16:30.800 you can stay and burn. Uh. And they burned to death, 0:16:30.960 --> 0:16:34.680 and they were put in Popper's caskets and buried in 0:16:34.720 --> 0:16:38.560 a mass grave. Once the white mob started burning people's 0:16:38.600 --> 0:16:42.840 homes and churches, people left. Every single black person in 0:16:42.880 --> 0:16:47.320 a koe that night, living or visiting, lost something, their 0:16:47.360 --> 0:16:49.960 sense of safety, their home, their property, whether they were 0:16:50.000 --> 0:16:55.280 a renter or a landowner, um sometimes their life. Those 0:16:55.320 --> 0:16:59.359 who survived the flames and gunfire escaped into the surrounding swamps. 0:17:00.280 --> 0:17:03.280 The Florida Times Union reported the next day that black 0:17:03.320 --> 0:17:07.720 survivors were seen walking along highways many miles from a koe, 0:17:08.080 --> 0:17:11.399 and the weeks and months that followed, virtually every single 0:17:11.520 --> 0:17:14.480 black person fled the town. And then it looked like 0:17:14.560 --> 0:17:17.879 refugees from from a war zone. That those those are 0:17:17.920 --> 0:17:21.960 the descriptions. We have people leaving in wagons with all 0:17:22.000 --> 0:17:27.760 of their possessions, White people lining the roads, cheering, jeering, 0:17:28.800 --> 0:17:32.359 you lost. We won. A day that had begun with 0:17:32.480 --> 0:17:35.240 hopes of a better life and a stronger democracy in 0:17:35.280 --> 0:17:39.240 Florida came to an almost unthinkable end as a cooee 0:17:39.359 --> 0:17:51.200 burned into the night. Back in Orlando, another violent crowd 0:17:51.240 --> 0:17:56.399 had gathered. July Perry is in mortal danger in the 0:17:56.480 --> 0:17:59.879 jail in Orlando. He is taken by a lunch mom, 0:18:00.000 --> 0:18:03.679 Pamela Schwartz. He is brutalized. There are many versions of 0:18:03.720 --> 0:18:06.520 what happened to him, some very very descriptive and graphic, 0:18:07.080 --> 0:18:11.119 but he is taken, is lynched. He's hanged. If you 0:18:11.280 --> 0:18:15.160 leave a papa and going through the country club role 0:18:15.240 --> 0:18:19.040 of block from Colonial There was an old tree. I 0:18:19.119 --> 0:18:21.760 don't know where the same old cree. There is a 0:18:21.800 --> 0:18:25.400 big old tree right now. They are tanned him up 0:18:25.520 --> 0:18:28.560 and let him hang from that tree for a while. 0:18:29.640 --> 0:18:32.680 The tree was near the entrance to the Orlando Country Club, 0:18:32.760 --> 0:18:36.199 by some accounts, in view of the house of John Cheney, 0:18:36.240 --> 0:18:39.159 a white judge who tried to help black citizens of 0:18:39.160 --> 0:18:42.840 a coal we vote. The story went that July was 0:18:43.119 --> 0:18:47.480 intentionally hanged, um what you know, in view of Chinese house, 0:18:47.560 --> 0:18:49.359 but that it was across this lake and it was 0:18:49.440 --> 0:18:52.800 up by country club at the time. The way the 0:18:52.840 --> 0:18:54.679 trees and everything were like when we look back at 0:18:54.760 --> 0:18:57.440 historic photos of that lake in different things like, I 0:18:57.480 --> 0:19:00.320 don't think anybody could have seen anything from the judge house. 0:19:00.760 --> 0:19:04.520 So I think that that is a thing that became 0:19:04.600 --> 0:19:09.120 part of the lore. But there was an unmistakable message. 0:19:09.520 --> 0:19:13.240 That's what Lynch was about. Historian Paul Ortiz. It was 0:19:13.280 --> 0:19:17.240 really about sending a lesson to the entire black and 0:19:17.400 --> 0:19:20.240 white and Hispanic communities. You know, whether it was in 0:19:20.280 --> 0:19:24.120 the Southwest or in Florida, wherever. We're in charge here 0:19:25.320 --> 0:19:29.000 and we don't follow the law, we are the law. 0:19:30.080 --> 0:19:33.800 A local black undertaker took down Parry's corpse from the 0:19:33.920 --> 0:19:38.760 tree the next day. Oh, he had done so many 0:19:38.800 --> 0:19:43.440 things to his body. There wasn't too much left hanging 0:19:44.400 --> 0:19:48.920 because they had just put his body up in pieces, 0:19:50.080 --> 0:19:54.480 but they took whatever they could and am show. They 0:19:54.600 --> 0:20:02.280 embombed him and they buried him. The terror inflicted on 0:20:02.320 --> 0:20:06.320 the Black Sitessens of Akoe didn't end with election day. 0:20:06.480 --> 0:20:10.440 The story has always gone that everybody left immediately, the 0:20:10.440 --> 0:20:13.639 black community left, they never came back. The story after 0:20:13.880 --> 0:20:18.480 is far more nuanced and horrific, I think, personally, um 0:20:18.560 --> 0:20:21.600 than that there's an official cover up that goes on 0:20:21.680 --> 0:20:25.080 for decades after the event. There's just so so much 0:20:25.119 --> 0:20:27.719 to the story. I think the most horrific thing is 0:20:28.640 --> 0:20:30.640 that we don't know, and we don't know by design. 0:20:31.760 --> 0:20:35.560 By design, we don't have records. We don't have names 0:20:35.560 --> 0:20:37.320 for the people who were killed. We don't know what 0:20:37.480 --> 0:20:39.919 homes burned and which ones don't. We don't know what 0:20:40.000 --> 0:20:42.920 happened to people and where they went. What we do 0:20:43.000 --> 0:20:45.280 know is that the terror in a Koe was not 0:20:45.560 --> 0:20:49.720 carried out only by people in masks and robes. Much 0:20:49.760 --> 0:20:53.000 of it was committed openly, and the campaign to keep 0:20:53.080 --> 0:20:55.960 black people from voting in Florida was not limited to 0:20:56.040 --> 0:21:00.280 anonymous letters from the ku Klux Klan. Editorials were rented 0:21:00.280 --> 0:21:03.600 in the most prominent newspapers in the state. When the 0:21:03.680 --> 0:21:06.919 Atlanto sentin older Mommy Harolds say that white supremacy, that 0:21:07.000 --> 0:21:10.359 our foundation, the foundation of our civilization, White supremacy is 0:21:10.800 --> 0:21:15.160 a danger. We have to take them seriously. And when 0:21:15.160 --> 0:21:17.800 we take them seriously, we realize that they're going to 0:21:17.880 --> 0:21:21.919 do anything they can to break up any challenge to 0:21:21.960 --> 0:21:25.720 their power system. And this is why so many white 0:21:25.760 --> 0:21:28.320 people descend upon it color, because they're trying to send 0:21:28.400 --> 0:21:32.199 a lesson to that not only are you not going 0:21:32.240 --> 0:21:36.560 to vote today, You're never going to vote. What happened 0:21:36.560 --> 0:21:40.639 in the Koe was not just about one election. What 0:21:40.800 --> 0:21:48.320 happened next would take years to orchestrate and execute. In 0:21:48.440 --> 0:21:53.119 part three of the election day massacre, where did everybody go? 0:21:53.280 --> 0:21:55.199 And you look for the families and the histories and 0:21:55.240 --> 0:21:57.040 you try to find where they are today and you 0:21:57.080 --> 0:22:00.359 can't find people. You can't find them. They just asso 0:22:00.440 --> 0:22:04.480 go on. Nobody's ever held responsible in any way, shape 0:22:04.560 --> 0:22:06.800 or form for what happens out of Koe. It was 0:22:07.000 --> 0:22:11.919 government supported landa. The scripture says, thou shalt not steal. 0:22:12.840 --> 0:22:15.280 They stole it, and they need to give it back. 0:22:20.160 --> 0:22:23.320 This episode of flashback. The election Day massacret was written 0:22:23.359 --> 0:22:26.760 by Sean Braswell and voiced by me Eugene S. Robinson, 0:22:27.359 --> 0:22:31.280 was produced by Maeve mcgren and Theory Oh Diggi Zula. 0:22:32.400 --> 0:22:33.920 Chris Haff engineered our show.