WEBVTT - Special Series: The Election Day Massacre, Part 3 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 --> 0:00:17.480 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 --> 0:00:27.760 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. 0:00:50.080 --> 0:00:55.360 They said that you lack parish house was burned. I 0:00:55.520 --> 0:00:59.360 sure it were. This oral history was recorded a few 0:00:59.440 --> 0:01:02.720 years ago with the late Mildred Board. We're hearing a 0:01:02.840 --> 0:01:06.160 courtesy of the Orange County Regional History Center. As a 0:01:06.160 --> 0:01:09.480 little girl, Mrs Board lived a few miles from a Koe, Florida. 0:01:10.080 --> 0:01:14.240 The morning after election Day nineteen hundreds of black families 0:01:14.280 --> 0:01:18.679 fled the town. She remembered. One woman in particular talked 0:01:18.720 --> 0:01:24.360 about how they got on the railroad track and walked 0:01:24.400 --> 0:01:28.440 the railroad track. They walked so far and then maybe 0:01:28.480 --> 0:01:32.760 they had a truck, haws and blugget, and they would 0:01:32.760 --> 0:01:36.640 pick them up along the railroad track and bring them here. 0:01:37.480 --> 0:01:41.200 Almost every surviving black resident fled a Koe after a 0:01:41.360 --> 0:01:45.640 night of horrifying attacks by white vigilantes. Their homes and 0:01:45.720 --> 0:01:48.960 churches were set on fire. A leader of the community, 0:01:49.240 --> 0:01:53.760 July Perry, was lynched. Other neighbors were shot. Estimates of 0:01:53.800 --> 0:01:56.880 the number of black people murdered that night range from 0:01:56.960 --> 0:02:02.280 four to sixty. The reason for them Assaca Koe's black 0:02:02.400 --> 0:02:16.840 residents had attempted to vote. I'm Eugenus Robinson. You're listening 0:02:16.880 --> 0:02:34.680 to the election day massacre from Ozzie Media. Coe was 0:02:34.720 --> 0:02:38.840 a national and international story. And if you look at 0:02:38.880 --> 0:02:44.160 any newspaper in n around election Day, you can't miss 0:02:44.200 --> 0:02:49.000 a Coe. Historian Paul Ortiz the University of Florida, the 0:02:49.040 --> 0:02:51.720 stories in the New York Times, is in the Chicago tribunits, 0:02:51.720 --> 0:02:54.880 in the European press, it's an the Latin American press. 0:02:55.080 --> 0:02:58.720 U it's an international story. In other words, newspapers called 0:02:58.760 --> 0:03:03.760 it the Coe horror. But Florida's election day violence wasn't 0:03:03.840 --> 0:03:07.399 limited to a Koe, So there was a statewide reactionary 0:03:07.440 --> 0:03:11.000 movement against the black struggle to regain right to vote, 0:03:12.000 --> 0:03:14.880 and there was violence all over the state. Um, there 0:03:14.880 --> 0:03:19.440 were gun battles, you know, their assassinations. As far as 0:03:19.480 --> 0:03:24.520 I can tell in my research, the worst violence, the 0:03:24.600 --> 0:03:27.800 most sustained anti black violence, you know, appear to happen 0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:32.400 in a Choe. They call for able bodied ex servicemen 0:03:32.480 --> 0:03:35.720 to come and create a perimeter around a koee. Pamela Schwartz, 0:03:35.800 --> 0:03:39.080 chief curator of the Orange County Regional History Center, put 0:03:39.120 --> 0:03:42.520 together an exhibition on the Echoe massacre. Now they say 0:03:42.560 --> 0:03:46.120 that's to lock down the crime scene, but it also 0:03:46.160 --> 0:03:50.160 means black families can't go find their loved ones, get 0:03:50.200 --> 0:03:53.800 to their possessions. See what's going on. The a CP 0:03:54.040 --> 0:03:58.040 sent in an investigator, Walter Francis White, later president of 0:03:58.080 --> 0:04:02.560 the organization, when he traveled the US investigating lynchings and 0:04:02.600 --> 0:04:06.440 other acts of violence against Black Americans. At the time 0:04:06.480 --> 0:04:10.080 that I visited O'koe, the last colored family of Ocoe 0:04:10.120 --> 0:04:12.360 was leaving with their good It's piled high on a 0:04:12.400 --> 0:04:16.680 motor truck with six colored children on top. White children 0:04:16.720 --> 0:04:20.200 stood around in g The Negroes who were leaving threatened 0:04:20.200 --> 0:04:22.039 them with burned if they did not hurry up and 0:04:22.080 --> 0:04:24.960 get away. These children thought it a huge joke that 0:04:25.120 --> 0:04:30.000 some Negroes had been burned alive. Walter White comes down. Uh, 0:04:30.040 --> 0:04:33.359 he's a very light skinned black man. He can pass 0:04:33.400 --> 0:04:37.479 for white. Uh. He uses the subject usure being a 0:04:37.520 --> 0:04:41.239 white man interested in buying orange grows in western Orange County. 0:04:41.279 --> 0:04:44.159 And he starts talking to white people about the mask, 0:04:44.279 --> 0:04:46.800 and they tell him all sorts of details that I 0:04:47.320 --> 0:04:49.839 personally killed or I know how many Negroes were killed. 0:04:50.480 --> 0:04:53.479 And he finds that white people are very proud about 0:04:53.520 --> 0:04:57.160 what they did on election day. One man told him 0:04:57.640 --> 0:05:02.760 I shot seventeen Negroes. He shot seventeen himself when he 0:05:02.839 --> 0:05:06.440 was bragging about it. Pamela Grady isn't a COOEE resident 0:05:06.480 --> 0:05:09.880 and the executive director of the July Perry Foundation. There 0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:13.280 was an article in a newspaper that said, We're gonna 0:05:13.320 --> 0:05:15.839 have a banquet for everyone who came, and we want 0:05:15.880 --> 0:05:17.839 we want to reward you. The one is shot the 0:05:17.880 --> 0:05:21.359 most Negroes, the one is shot the most is going 0:05:21.400 --> 0:05:24.560 to get a reward. The reason that Koe Horror made 0:05:24.560 --> 0:05:27.600 headlines is not that dozens of black people were murdered 0:05:27.640 --> 0:05:30.880 and hundreds of black families were made homeless. It was 0:05:30.920 --> 0:05:33.560 because two white members of the mob that Lynch July 0:05:33.680 --> 0:05:37.160 Perry were killed during a shootout. There was the Corners 0:05:37.240 --> 0:05:40.440 in quest, which happens November three and four, and what 0:05:40.640 --> 0:05:45.120 is found is no unknown parties killed the white individuals. 0:05:45.279 --> 0:05:49.080 Unknown parties killed July Perry, which was a common report 0:05:49.600 --> 0:05:52.400 leading at dimensions. We had a black victim who was 0:05:52.440 --> 0:05:56.599 in police custody, and all ways the result was killed 0:05:56.600 --> 0:06:00.560 that persons unknown. Marvin Dunn is the author of a 0:06:00.720 --> 0:06:04.880 History of Florida through Black Eyes. When those white men 0:06:04.920 --> 0:06:09.039 took to lay from that jail, those jailers knew every 0:06:09.040 --> 0:06:12.200 man who was in that group. Oh, Cooy was a 0:06:12.320 --> 0:06:15.880 verse ball town. Everybody knew everybody else. Prosecutors called a 0:06:15.920 --> 0:06:18.640 grand jury. In Orange County, there was always a grand 0:06:18.720 --> 0:06:23.719 jury convened. There was always a grand jury convened. And 0:06:23.760 --> 0:06:27.680 who were the members of the grand jury. They would 0:06:27.680 --> 0:06:31.400 have been all white men. So the convening of the 0:06:31.440 --> 0:06:36.240 grand jury meant nothing. Historian Paul Ortiz, people will say, well, 0:06:36.760 --> 0:06:40.279 according to this testimony, July Perry did this with a 0:06:40.320 --> 0:06:43.320 loaded weapon, you know, and and did that in this 0:06:44.000 --> 0:06:48.720 I say, excuse me, whose testimony and number one is 0:06:48.760 --> 0:06:53.400 a testimonies hearsay who's hearsay? Are you? Are you? Depending 0:06:53.480 --> 0:06:59.799 upon were they white? Oh yes, well come on now, 0:07:01.040 --> 0:07:04.080 come please. One of the biggest mysteries is that a 0:07:04.120 --> 0:07:07.360 grand jury was conducted and there was some thirteen or 0:07:07.400 --> 0:07:11.600 fourteen witnesses, only one black man thirteen or fourteen witnesses, 0:07:12.320 --> 0:07:17.520 and that's missing. It's not in anybody's files anywhere. So 0:07:17.720 --> 0:07:20.000 there's a lot of things, a lot of records that 0:07:20.040 --> 0:07:23.360 should have been kept that weren't. The grand jury found 0:07:23.440 --> 0:07:27.640 quote no evidence against any one or group of individuals 0:07:27.960 --> 0:07:31.520 as to who perpetrated the fatalities. Again, I want us 0:07:31.560 --> 0:07:39.560 to be cautious about relying on the words of white leaders, 0:07:39.960 --> 0:07:43.440 be they in the Chamber of Commerce or political officials 0:07:43.480 --> 0:07:48.480 or whatever, because they have a vested interest in jerrymandering 0:07:48.520 --> 0:07:51.960 the story to make it appear as if July period 0:07:52.040 --> 0:07:54.440 is this crazy negro and that's how they that's how 0:07:54.480 --> 0:07:56.960 they referred to him. Things would have been fine if 0:07:57.000 --> 0:08:00.840 it wasn't for this crazy negro. The and jury did 0:08:00.920 --> 0:08:04.680 exonerate the only people who were imprisoned after election day, 0:08:04.960 --> 0:08:13.360 July Perry's wife and daughter, Estelle and Caretha Walter White 0:08:13.400 --> 0:08:16.880 concluded that more than thirty black residents of Okoe were 0:08:16.960 --> 0:08:20.680 murdered on election day. Other estimates put that number as 0:08:20.760 --> 0:08:24.600 high as sixty. The n Double A CP sent White's 0:08:24.680 --> 0:08:28.160 damning report to Congress. When the CP goes before the 0:08:28.160 --> 0:08:33.920 House Census Committee, when Congress convenes in you know, Florida 0:08:34.240 --> 0:08:40.240 is case number one. Walter White had gathered affidavits, statistics, photographs, 0:08:40.280 --> 0:08:44.680 and witness testimony. And so the Double AC Preventment presents 0:08:44.720 --> 0:08:49.920 all this amazing evidence before the Census Committee about fraud 0:08:50.160 --> 0:08:54.200 and corruption and anti black violence, including a COE. This 0:08:54.280 --> 0:08:57.280 is not merely a question of the Negro by any means. 0:08:57.840 --> 0:09:01.599 James Weldon Johnson Double a c p's executive secretary was 0:09:01.640 --> 0:09:05.520 a Floridian born in Jacksonville. He too, would one day 0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:08.360 be president of the A c P. He was an 0:09:08.400 --> 0:09:11.160 attorney and also the poet who wrote the lyrics to 0:09:11.240 --> 0:09:14.400 Lift of Your Voice and Sing. He told the committee 0:09:14.400 --> 0:09:17.439 that the suppression of black voters in the South undermine 0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:21.520 democracy across the entire nation. It is a question of 0:09:21.559 --> 0:09:25.839 Republican government and the fundamentals of American democracy. It is 0:09:25.840 --> 0:09:27.720 a question which is either going to come to this 0:09:27.800 --> 0:09:30.480 Congress or to some other Congress in the future, and 0:09:30.520 --> 0:09:33.880 with increasing force every time it comes up. And it 0:09:33.960 --> 0:09:35.679 seems to me it is better to pass on the 0:09:35.800 --> 0:09:39.600 question fairly and squarely and justly today and not wait 0:09:39.679 --> 0:09:46.880 until some unknown tomorrow. But wait is exactly what Congress did. 0:09:47.480 --> 0:09:49.840 Northern Congressman or and then the committee, They're like, well, 0:09:50.120 --> 0:09:53.560 I mean I don't support negro suffrage. Do you talking 0:09:53.559 --> 0:09:56.680 to their colleague? You know, Negroes don't go where I 0:09:56.760 --> 0:09:58.960 where I am. Why should they have to do that? 0:09:59.000 --> 0:10:02.360 In Florida, we wouldn't put up with that. The Bureau 0:10:02.400 --> 0:10:07.760 of Investigation later named the FBI, launched an inquiry into Koe, 0:10:07.960 --> 0:10:13.480 but it was limited. Was the state local governments suppressing 0:10:13.520 --> 0:10:17.560 black voters. That is what the thing is about. Not 0:10:17.720 --> 0:10:21.280 about murder, not about terror, not about our sin. It 0:10:21.400 --> 0:10:25.440 is about election fraud. The Bureau of Investigation found that 0:10:25.480 --> 0:10:29.320 there was quote no attempt to intimidate any Negroes in 0:10:29.320 --> 0:10:31.880 the casting of their ballots, and that there was no 0:10:32.040 --> 0:10:36.400 interference with the voting of qualified Negroes. Walter White is 0:10:36.440 --> 0:10:38.559 not able as much research and work as he does, 0:10:38.600 --> 0:10:40.520 and he puts his own life on the line time 0:10:40.559 --> 0:10:43.520 and again in Central Florida to try to bring visibility 0:10:43.600 --> 0:10:48.480 to these um these stories and these these events, and 0:10:49.559 --> 0:10:53.320 ultimately really doesn't get much of anywhere with them. I mean, basically, 0:10:53.400 --> 0:10:57.920 you know, white supremacy gets another four decades um of life. 0:10:58.040 --> 0:11:00.680 That's really the most important, you know, kind of an outcome. 0:11:01.600 --> 0:11:05.679 H Politically speaking, it's believed that not a single black 0:11:05.720 --> 0:11:09.880 citizen of Orange County voted for nearly two decades after 0:11:09.920 --> 0:11:13.840 the massacre, and not a single white person was ever 0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:18.280 charged with the crime. Nobody's ever held responsible in any way, 0:11:18.280 --> 0:11:37.360 shape or form for what happens out of Coe. This 0:11:37.480 --> 0:11:39.880 three part limited series is brought to you by Procter 0:11:40.040 --> 0:11:43.600 and Gamble. Procter and Gamble believes that words alone won't 0:11:43.600 --> 0:11:48.480 create change, but stories do seek share and expect the 0:11:48.520 --> 0:11:52.400 whole truth of black life widen the screen to widen 0:11:52.440 --> 0:11:57.560 our view. Black residents continued to flee Akoe in the 0:11:57.640 --> 0:12:02.160 months and years that followed the massacre. July Perry's brother 0:12:02.160 --> 0:12:05.320 in law. A year later. They find him the next day, 0:12:05.480 --> 0:12:08.320 beaten with an announce of his life, stripped painted red 0:12:08.320 --> 0:12:10.319 and white stripe, with a bag overs head tied to 0:12:10.360 --> 0:12:15.480 a pole. He survives. He says that the aggressors told 0:12:15.559 --> 0:12:18.120 him he had been talking a little bit too much 0:12:18.160 --> 0:12:22.560 about what had happened at a Koe Last November, Cents 0:12:22.679 --> 0:12:25.600 is listed two hundred and fifty five black residents of 0:12:25.600 --> 0:12:32.880 a Koe by there were only two, both house servants. 0:12:33.400 --> 0:12:35.480 A lot of total loss of poppets because it didn't 0:12:35.480 --> 0:12:38.559 they went there to bet on taxes. Historian Marvin Dunn 0:12:39.000 --> 0:12:40.800 so a lot of the gloves that were on that 0:12:40.920 --> 0:12:44.440 Blacks were taken over in that way. Within two weeks 0:12:44.440 --> 0:12:48.400 of the election day massacre, there are advertisements in Orlando 0:12:48.440 --> 0:12:53.600 and Miami newspapers orange groves for sale in a Koe, 0:12:53.720 --> 0:12:58.600 including July Perry's. It says, beautiful little groves of the 0:12:58.640 --> 0:13:01.080 negroes who just fled a cop That's what I said 0:13:01.080 --> 0:13:04.360 in the newspaper, Beautiful little groves of the negroes who 0:13:04.440 --> 0:13:07.760 just fled a Koe. That was supposed to be attractive 0:13:07.840 --> 0:13:12.280 to people. The ad was placed by Blueford Sims, one 0:13:12.280 --> 0:13:15.240 of the founders of the town of a Koe. He 0:13:15.280 --> 0:13:18.560 was appointed by a local court to execute the estate 0:13:18.640 --> 0:13:23.240 of July Perry. A Black of Koe resident, Mrs J. H. 0:13:23.240 --> 0:13:27.720 Hammelur wrote to a friend a few weeks later, the 0:13:27.800 --> 0:13:29.920 people in the south of town are being threatened that 0:13:29.960 --> 0:13:32.800 they must sell out and leave or they will be 0:13:32.840 --> 0:13:37.200 shot and burned as the others have been. It seems 0:13:37.240 --> 0:13:41.160 to have been a prearranged affair to kill and drive 0:13:41.200 --> 0:13:43.679 the colored people from their homes, as they were more 0:13:43.720 --> 0:13:47.200 prosperous than the white folks. So they are hoping to 0:13:47.240 --> 0:13:50.840 get their homes for nothing, nak it on. The conditions 0:13:50.840 --> 0:13:54.720 were often an underlying tractor in race riots. I don't 0:13:54.760 --> 0:13:56.959 know of a race riot that took place in a 0:13:57.040 --> 0:14:01.920 poor black area during this period. Before nineteen twenty, the 0:14:02.000 --> 0:14:06.000 black community and a KOE was thriving. July Perry and 0:14:06.040 --> 0:14:08.320 his friend Mose Norman, who had tried to vote an 0:14:08.320 --> 0:14:12.120 election day, were prosperous citizens, and there were jealous is 0:14:12.320 --> 0:14:16.080 among lights about about some of that, and particularly how 0:14:16.920 --> 0:14:20.960 Perry and most Normans showed their wealth as con Carsville 0:14:21.160 --> 0:14:24.640 land at nice homes, and that really led some white 0:14:24.800 --> 0:14:28.480 and cooee. Leading up to this event, the exhibition at 0:14:28.480 --> 0:14:32.280 the Orange County Regional History Center mapped the growth of 0:14:32.360 --> 0:14:37.000 black land ownership around the KOE and then it's disappearance. 0:14:37.480 --> 0:14:40.480 So you see this thirty years slow rise and prosperity. 0:14:40.720 --> 0:14:44.320 Then as you scroll away from November, you come up 0:14:44.320 --> 0:14:48.800 to nineteen thirty. By all the properties have gone back 0:14:48.840 --> 0:14:51.720 to white ownership. So thirty years you see this like 0:14:51.800 --> 0:14:54.720 popping up prosperity, and then in just six years it's 0:14:54.720 --> 0:14:59.400 wiped out. Many Black of Koe residents, including the Perry family, 0:14:59.520 --> 0:15:04.080 tried years to get their property back. The Perrys discovered 0:15:04.120 --> 0:15:08.840 that the deed had been restricted no black person could 0:15:08.880 --> 0:15:15.880 buy the land in Stella and Karifa and family sue said, well, 0:15:15.920 --> 0:15:18.280 they asked the courts. They say, we need an accounting 0:15:18.360 --> 0:15:21.160 of what happened here, like where is the money. It's 0:15:21.200 --> 0:15:24.440 it's been four years at the end when all is 0:15:24.480 --> 0:15:31.160 said and done. Twelve years later, twelve years later, two 0:15:31.600 --> 0:15:34.360 the seven or so descendants of July Perry received one 0:15:34.440 --> 0:15:37.360 hundred and roughly a hundred and twenty six dollars each 0:15:38.360 --> 0:15:41.240 for over thirty acres of land, all of their personal 0:15:41.280 --> 0:15:46.560 property and the death of their patriarch. That twelve years 0:15:46.600 --> 0:15:49.200 they fight to get a hundred and twenty six dollars each, 0:15:49.840 --> 0:15:53.040 and the properties that changed hands weren't scrub land of 0:15:53.160 --> 0:15:57.560 gravel patches, their orange groves and farming lands and lakeside 0:15:57.640 --> 0:16:01.880 property just a dozen miles from the spot where decades 0:16:02.040 --> 0:16:07.920 later a new resort would stand Disney World. All of 0:16:07.960 --> 0:16:11.200 the land that had been owned by black landowners at 0:16:11.200 --> 0:16:14.400 the time of the massacre, that was taken over the 0:16:14.440 --> 0:16:16.680 next six to seven years. It wasn't immediate, like the 0:16:16.680 --> 0:16:18.560 story has always gone, but over the next six years 0:16:19.320 --> 0:16:23.000 is worth well over nine million dollars today. And to 0:16:23.120 --> 0:16:26.680 tell a descendant who should have inherited those lands, could 0:16:26.760 --> 0:16:29.960 have inherited those lands, that that's they could have been 0:16:30.000 --> 0:16:35.680 millionaires is a really, really difficult thing. What these massacres 0:16:35.800 --> 0:16:38.800 and and and programs are all about is that the 0:16:38.840 --> 0:16:47.120 attempt among white business supremacy to roll back black economic 0:16:47.240 --> 0:16:54.720 social political games. It's redistribution of black wealth into white hands, 0:16:55.120 --> 0:16:58.320 is really what happens. And this is what makes a 0:16:58.440 --> 0:17:03.880 coe um almost a mundane story, because it's happening everywhere. 0:17:04.480 --> 0:17:07.480 One of the most disturbing aspects of the Echoe massacre 0:17:07.920 --> 0:17:11.439 is that it was not an isolated event. In the 0:17:11.480 --> 0:17:16.240 next few years, a cooee became a template for horrendous violence. 0:17:16.880 --> 0:17:20.560 Other white communities terrorized their black neighbors and then stole 0:17:20.640 --> 0:17:25.760 their properties again and again. We know that there continues 0:17:25.800 --> 0:17:29.640 to be violence and antype like lynching in adjacent counties, 0:17:30.440 --> 0:17:35.119 kind of secondary effects of the Echoi massacre. There's a 0:17:35.160 --> 0:17:40.160 notorious lynching case in Cassim three which which we think 0:17:40.240 --> 0:17:43.320 is connected to to the Echoe massacre in some ways. 0:17:43.480 --> 0:17:46.480 And it happens in Tulsa, happens in the St. Louis, 0:17:46.520 --> 0:17:50.280 it happens in Chicago, happens along the Texas. It later 0:17:50.320 --> 0:17:54.080 it happens in Rosewood. And that's another theme which ties 0:17:54.240 --> 0:17:57.480 a Coe to today, this question of you know where 0:17:57.480 --> 0:18:00.760 did that black land go? You know, any cases black 0:18:00.800 --> 0:18:04.920 people were driven out by terror tactics, the terror continues 0:18:05.040 --> 0:18:08.960 and continues and continues until it drives the black community out. 0:18:09.000 --> 0:18:13.120 For a half of a century, from up until around 0:18:13.200 --> 0:18:17.760 nineteen seventy six, there are no documented that we were 0:18:17.760 --> 0:18:22.639 aware of black individuals living and residing in Kobe. You 0:18:22.680 --> 0:18:25.919 know where did everybody go? Pamela Greedy And then you 0:18:25.920 --> 0:18:27.800 look for the families and the histories, and you try 0:18:27.840 --> 0:18:30.399 to find where they are today and you can't find people. 0:18:30.560 --> 0:18:32.679 You can't find it. I'm I'm still doing research. You 0:18:32.720 --> 0:18:36.320 can't find them. They just lost and gone. Marvin Dunn, 0:18:36.640 --> 0:18:40.159 author of a history of Florida through Black Eyes. It 0:18:40.359 --> 0:18:42.960 was buried, It was not talked about. It was not 0:18:43.040 --> 0:18:45.280 in the newspapers after the event was over. It was 0:18:45.320 --> 0:18:48.280 certainly not in textbooks. So, like many of the race 0:18:48.359 --> 0:18:51.320 wise in massacres in the South and in Florida, once 0:18:51.359 --> 0:18:55.199 the events left the front page of the newspapers, uh 0:18:55.320 --> 0:18:58.200 they were there, people didn't talk about them. We know 0:18:59.080 --> 0:19:02.560 that there was an ongoing attempt to cover up this event, 0:19:02.640 --> 0:19:05.359 to quiet this event, to get people to stop talking 0:19:05.359 --> 0:19:08.040 about what had happened. Because what happens when people talk 0:19:09.320 --> 0:19:12.359 the truth, the facts start to come out and become known. 0:19:14.760 --> 0:19:18.240 For decades, black folks in central Florida knew that something 0:19:18.560 --> 0:19:22.000 very bad had happened in the Kowe, not just that 0:19:22.080 --> 0:19:24.439 it was a sundown town where they were not welcome 0:19:24.520 --> 0:19:28.240 after dark, but that there were other grave reasons to 0:19:28.320 --> 0:19:32.720 stay away. Then descendants of the victims began trying to 0:19:32.840 --> 0:19:36.800 learn more about the terrible stories handed down in their families. 0:19:37.520 --> 0:19:42.119 Students did research. Over the decades, groups of Orange County 0:19:42.200 --> 0:19:48.080 residents investigated the rumors and conducted oral histories. Today's event 0:19:48.160 --> 0:19:52.359 will not be possible without the decades of community work 0:19:52.640 --> 0:19:56.960 by such grassroots groups as a Democracy Reform and the 0:19:57.000 --> 0:20:03.399 West Orange Reconciliation Task Force, which began to excavate the 0:20:03.560 --> 0:20:08.840 history in nineteen ninety seven. The Democracy Forum, the West 0:20:08.880 --> 0:20:13.919 Orange Reconciliation Task Force, the July Perry Foundation all pieced 0:20:14.000 --> 0:20:17.199 the story together. We have a d research team and 0:20:17.240 --> 0:20:19.600 we are uncovering or where a lot of this land 0:20:19.640 --> 0:20:21.879 is at. It's just a tedious process because you have 0:20:21.960 --> 0:20:24.080 to go bit by bit and undercover. You know, you 0:20:24.080 --> 0:20:27.720 gotta go through obituaries and estates and sales and all that. 0:20:27.720 --> 0:20:30.600 People die and you can't have a wonder where would 0:20:30.640 --> 0:20:33.879 these families be had they had had this generational wealth 0:20:34.320 --> 0:20:37.720 that was strict from them. In two thousand and two, 0:20:38.400 --> 0:20:42.520 July Perry's body was located in an unmarked grave. It 0:20:42.600 --> 0:20:46.680 was discovered in Orlando at a cemetery there July Perry's 0:20:46.720 --> 0:20:51.399 great grandson, Pastor Stephen Nunn, And so we went back 0:20:51.760 --> 0:20:54.640 a mom and dad and I and we um they 0:20:54.680 --> 0:20:59.920 had a memorial service there at the grave site. Eat 0:21:00.320 --> 0:21:04.879 decades after July Perry was lynched, his grandchildren and great 0:21:04.920 --> 0:21:08.560 grandchildren returned to a koe. Yeah, when we finally started 0:21:08.560 --> 0:21:11.800 taking certain turns in certain streets to finally get into 0:21:12.280 --> 0:21:17.679 the area where we uh later ended up. Quickly, I 0:21:17.720 --> 0:21:20.760 was like, wow, this is not Disney World. It's definitely 0:21:20.880 --> 0:21:26.480 Disney World. Um and then it hit It was like wow. 0:21:26.920 --> 0:21:29.800 So now in my head, I could see white sheets, 0:21:30.400 --> 0:21:35.760 I could see guns, I could see extreme racism. I 0:21:35.800 --> 0:21:40.960 could see area that still had a boy Mr kind 0:21:40.960 --> 0:21:43.840 of mindset and some of the spirited people. It was 0:21:44.040 --> 0:21:46.840 crystal clear to me at that point. Just a few 0:21:46.920 --> 0:21:50.560 yards away from July Perry's grave in Orlando's Greenwood Cemetery 0:21:50.680 --> 0:21:54.400 lies the grave of Sam Salisbury, the man who led 0:21:54.440 --> 0:21:58.680 the mob to Perry's house. Salisbury's grave is topped by 0:21:58.680 --> 0:22:02.040 a monument and surrounded by the graves of his family 0:22:02.040 --> 0:22:12.040 and descendants. July Perry's grave stands alone. Good morning, Orlando community, 0:22:13.720 --> 0:22:19.560 Welcome to the historical marking unveiling for July Perry. It 0:22:19.640 --> 0:22:21.880 has been a long road to this day to get here. 0:22:22.720 --> 0:22:26.720 It took almost a century for a public remembrance of 0:22:26.800 --> 0:22:31.320 July Perry, the sacrifice of Mr Perry so that African 0:22:31.320 --> 0:22:36.200 Americans could vote. It's a dark and deadly part of 0:22:36.280 --> 0:22:41.399 our history and one that will not be forgotten. Jerry 0:22:41.440 --> 0:22:45.000 Demmings is the first black mayor of Orange County. His wife, 0:22:45.119 --> 0:22:48.320 Val Demmings, is a member of the United States Congress. 0:22:49.040 --> 0:22:53.159 But I want to be clear this morning that I 0:22:53.240 --> 0:22:58.639 have no illusions, our delusions that anything that we do 0:22:58.800 --> 0:23:04.520 here today, well, right, the wrongs of a racist pass. 0:23:07.880 --> 0:23:12.399 But what we can do. What we can do is 0:23:12.560 --> 0:23:21.560 respect the atumn. What's interesting is so many of my 0:23:21.640 --> 0:23:25.000 colleagues have never even heard of the story. State Senator 0:23:25.080 --> 0:23:29.480 Randolph Bracy's district includes central and northwest Orange County. He 0:23:29.600 --> 0:23:32.720 introduced the bill on the Florida legislature to require that 0:23:32.800 --> 0:23:37.520 schools teach children about the Echoe massacre. A version passed, 0:23:38.359 --> 0:23:42.080 minus a provision to pay reparations to the descendants of 0:23:42.080 --> 0:23:45.439 the victims. As we moved the bill forward and it 0:23:45.560 --> 0:23:49.640 was talked about, debated, and um, they're gained support for it. 0:23:50.760 --> 0:23:52.600 There were some colleagues of mine and say, hey, I 0:23:52.640 --> 0:23:57.760 think we should look at reparations, even on the Republican side. 0:23:57.880 --> 0:24:01.880 So I think there is an opportunity need to look 0:24:01.920 --> 0:24:04.800 at that again, and it's something I'll be pushing. Some 0:24:04.960 --> 0:24:07.760 of the descendants of the Echoe victims are also fighting 0:24:07.760 --> 0:24:12.080 for reparations. Janie Nelson is July Perry's great granddaughter and 0:24:12.240 --> 0:24:15.760 vice president of the July Perry Foundation. The script is 0:24:15.840 --> 0:24:20.040 says thou shalt not steal. They stole it and they 0:24:20.119 --> 0:24:28.000 need to give it back. A century after the Echoe massacre, 0:24:28.119 --> 0:24:32.240 in another presidential election year, the Cooe descendants and activists 0:24:32.280 --> 0:24:36.080 and historians are thinking about what still hasn't changed. We're 0:24:36.080 --> 0:24:39.560 back at this moment where a Coe becomes more important 0:24:39.560 --> 0:24:43.399 than ever, historian Paul Ortiz. Black people are still trying 0:24:43.440 --> 0:24:46.320 to register to vote. Light authorities are trying to find 0:24:46.320 --> 0:24:50.240 different ways to keep them from voting. Supervisors of elections, 0:24:50.680 --> 0:24:54.639 Secretaries of state scheming on ways to try to prevent 0:24:54.680 --> 0:24:59.920 them from participating in the democratic system. Florida is still 0:25:00.400 --> 0:25:05.639 actively involved and vote of suppression historian Marvin Dunn. Overwhelming 0:25:05.680 --> 0:25:09.320 majority of Fillians, white and black, voted for excellence is 0:25:09.400 --> 0:25:13.879 able to vote. The Florida State Legislature comes back immediately 0:25:13.880 --> 0:25:17.160 and passed the law that says all these excellence must 0:25:17.160 --> 0:25:21.200 pay all their institutions and court costs before they can vote. 0:25:21.880 --> 0:25:25.919 So they were immediately read disenfranchised. Pamela Grady of the 0:25:26.000 --> 0:25:28.800 July Perry Foundation. I look at right now at times 0:25:28.800 --> 0:25:30.639 and we're in right now, and how important it is 0:25:30.680 --> 0:25:33.360 to vote, you know, and how important how much went 0:25:33.480 --> 0:25:36.320 in for you know, us to have that right to vote. 0:25:36.600 --> 0:25:45.240 We take it so lightly. The town of a Koe 0:25:45.800 --> 0:25:49.520 is a modern, diverse community, but there are remnants of 0:25:49.560 --> 0:25:52.680 the past. None of the main streets in town is 0:25:52.800 --> 0:25:55.840 named for Blueford Sims, the white man who sold July 0:25:56.000 --> 0:26:00.720 Perry's land after he was lynched, But in the anniversary 0:26:00.840 --> 0:26:03.840 year of his death, another road in a Kowe, a 0:26:03.920 --> 0:26:09.640 state highway is being renamed the Julius July Perry Memorial Highway. 0:26:11.160 --> 0:26:14.600 I think he's a hero, absolutely absolutely. Obviously he was 0:26:14.800 --> 0:26:18.359 overcome and lynched, but we're still talking about him hundred 0:26:18.440 --> 0:26:23.520 years later. So I think in that context, in that 0:26:23.560 --> 0:26:27.760 time period, the life that he lived, the businessman that 0:26:27.840 --> 0:26:30.399 he was, and to have the boldness to do what 0:26:30.480 --> 0:26:35.520 he did, I think it it's heroic. It's really it 0:26:35.560 --> 0:26:38.360 really is. So July Perry had to be and had 0:26:38.400 --> 0:26:41.280 to have been awesome man. And I still can still 0:26:41.440 --> 0:26:44.199 your tear up thinking about it. How what an amazing 0:26:44.280 --> 0:26:47.160 man this was, that was that was gunned down, lynch 0:26:47.400 --> 0:26:52.200 drug and tortured, all for having the courage the courage 0:26:52.240 --> 0:26:55.080 to stand up and fight for a cause, and and 0:26:55.080 --> 0:26:58.840 and to put others first. You know, so do My 0:26:59.000 --> 0:27:02.000 Parry deserves to be the legacy of him to be 0:27:02.960 --> 0:27:07.800 always remembered throughout the rest of time. Our children need 0:27:07.880 --> 0:27:13.919 to know this rich history, Our grandchildren need to know. Okay, 0:27:13.920 --> 0:27:20.240 good morning, good morning children. This morning we will start 0:27:20.240 --> 0:27:27.600 our program with a musical solo of the national Black anthem. 0:27:27.680 --> 0:27:39.280 M hmm. We must not forget the sacrifice of July Period, 0:27:39.920 --> 0:27:43.840 his family and other African Americans killed in this horrific 0:27:44.080 --> 0:27:48.959 massacre as we stand here today to honor their memory. 0:27:50.040 --> 0:27:54.119