Speaker 1: As we draw closer to June tenth. On June nineteenth,
Speaker 1: the anniversary of the day when enslaved people in Texas
Speaker 1: were emancipated two and a half years after the Emancipation
Speaker 1: Proclamation was signed, we offer a remarkable story of the
Speaker 1: black residents of a small town in Florida who fought
Speaker 1: for their right to vote a century ago. This three
Speaker 1: part limited series is brought to you by Procter and Gamble.
Speaker 1: Procter and Gamble believes that words alone won't create change,
Speaker 1: but stories do seek share and expect the whole truth
Speaker 1: of black life. Widen the screen to widen our view.
Speaker 1: One hundred years ago, in the center of Florida, just
Speaker 1: a few miles from where Disney World stands today, there
Speaker 1: was an exodus. Hundreds of black families filed their children
Speaker 1: into wagons. They trudged all night along roads and railroad
Speaker 1: tracks and through sugarcane fields. They barely escapped with their lives.
Speaker 1: Dozens of their loved ones did not. They were lynched, shot,
Speaker 1: burned to death in the wreckage of their own homes. Today,
Speaker 1: this is forgotten, largely missing from history books, handed down
Speaker 1: only as a secret memory between generations of the families
Speaker 1: who escaped. But in nineteen that November nine, the town
Speaker 1: of Okoe, Florida wasn't a secret. It made headlines around
Speaker 1: the world. There was a grand jury investigation, even a
Speaker 1: hearing before Congress, and Americans, black and white, knew exactly
Speaker 1: why it had happened. They knew what it meant. This
Speaker 1: exodus was a warning to any black citizen who dared
Speaker 1: to try to vote. Yeah, I'm Eugene S. Robinson and
Speaker 1: this is the election day massacre from Assie media. In
Speaker 1: two thousand and twelve, Randolph Bracy became the first representative
Speaker 1: from a new state House district in central Florida. Less
Speaker 1: than one sixth of the members of the Florida House
Speaker 1: were black. I I was looking for office space after
Speaker 1: I won my election, and I had recently moved to Koe,
Speaker 1: and I decided to put my office in o Koe.
Speaker 1: Koe is just a dozen miles from Disney World, but
Speaker 1: it still has the feel of a small town. It's
Speaker 1: a pretty lake, splash park for the kids, beloved ice
Speaker 1: cream stand, the perfect place to live and work. And
Speaker 1: I remember it was an African American woman, older woman,
Speaker 1: and she almost lost it. One I sold I was
Speaker 1: moving my office to Koe. But she was from the
Speaker 1: age where she the era where she remembered that it
Speaker 1: was a sundown town where you couldn't be in Okoe
Speaker 1: unless you had some business and you had to be
Speaker 1: going before dark. Bracy, now a Florida State Senator, was shocked,
Speaker 1: but many people who live in the area longer or not.
Speaker 1: Historian Marvin Dunn is Professor Emeritus at Florida International University.
Speaker 1: He grew up in central Florida. My father told us,
Speaker 1: told me and my brothers about picking oranges in in Okoe.
Speaker 1: When they would leave to come back to the land,
Speaker 1: so driver of the white driver at Lndridge until almost dark,
Speaker 1: they would walk out of Okoe rather than be caught
Speaker 1: there after Darkkoe is a diverse community today, and it
Speaker 1: had a thriving black population long ago, But for half
Speaker 1: a century a Coe had almost no black residence. But
Speaker 1: this was in the ninety late nineties, and they told me,
Speaker 1: please don't tell anyone that you're coming here, that we've
Speaker 1: invited you here, that we're showing you where the black
Speaker 1: communities used to be. Paul Orts is a professor of
Speaker 1: history at the University of Florida. Don't tell anyone because
Speaker 1: it could put your life in jeopardy. It could put
Speaker 1: us in jeopardy. There are good reasons why no black
Speaker 1: person wants to live there for so many years. A
Speaker 1: Koe resident and community historian pam La Grady, you can
Speaker 1: see that's what happened there. You can feel that energy there.
Speaker 1: It's still it's still alive and well. What happened in
Speaker 1: a Koe a century ago remains the worst incident of
Speaker 1: election day violence in US history. What happened in a
Speaker 1: Koe was not an altercation. It was more than a
Speaker 1: lynching or shooting or riot. What happened in a Koe
Speaker 1: was a massacre. And what happened is all too relevant today.
Speaker 1: Florida is still active involved and photo suppression. And didn't
Speaker 1: even yet why she was so scared for me, And
Speaker 1: then I kind of learned the history, and I think
Speaker 1: it's so appropriate to talk about it in this year
Speaker 1: election because it is still to this date of bloody
Speaker 1: It's day in American political history. Have an on a
Speaker 1: presidential election. When a hundred years ago, African Americans in
Speaker 1: Florida were preparing for a historic election. Soldiers had come
Speaker 1: home after serving their country in World War One. The
Speaker 1: local economy was booming, women had earned the right to vote,
Speaker 1: The promise of America seemed closer than ever before, and
Speaker 1: then in a night of unspeakable violence, everything changed. There
Speaker 1: was no question who was in charge in central Florida
Speaker 1: a century ago. Often at the time, many of law
Speaker 1: enforcement and local pol petitians here were also members of
Speaker 1: the Ku Klux Klan. Pamela Schwartz is the chief curator
Speaker 1: of the Orange County Regional History Center in Orlando, Florida.
Speaker 1: One prominent white citizen at the time estimated that about
Speaker 1: nine of law enforcement officers, judges, and lawyers and their
Speaker 1: Coe area were clan members. There's a new rise in
Speaker 1: the Ku Klux Klan um. There's a resurgence of white supremacy. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's an active movement for white supremacists to try to
Speaker 1: disenfranchise black voters. In the days leading up to the
Speaker 1: election in November nine, the k k k was especially active.
Speaker 1: There are marches throughout the state of Florida, Jacksonville, Daytona,
Speaker 1: Orlando of Ku Klux Klan sending that same message of
Speaker 1: do you not get out to vote if you're black
Speaker 1: or else? In Orlando, around five hundred hooded men paraded
Speaker 1: behind three figures on horseback. They used megaphones to get
Speaker 1: their message out. Pol Or peace Is, the author of emancipation,
Speaker 1: betrayed the hidden history of black organizing a white violence
Speaker 1: in Florida from reconstruction to the bloody election of nineteen
Speaker 1: in Daytona, the night before election day, they marched through
Speaker 1: Mary mccloyd Bethune's campus, you know, and the municipal authority
Speaker 1: UM controlling the electricity actually kind of electricity, you know,
Speaker 1: to Daytona Industrial Worlds School, so that the clan could
Speaker 1: march through with their torches and terror tactics and and
Speaker 1: accurately scary. It's just all of this stuff is boiling
Speaker 1: and boiling, and the events of November second and third
Speaker 1: send it over the top. This was an event hundreds
Speaker 1: of years in the making, from the first enslavement here
Speaker 1: up through black holes and Jim Crow laws and the
Speaker 1: suppression of of women, the suppression of black voters, the
Speaker 1: suppression in all these different ways leading up to something
Speaker 1: like this event erupting. Five hundred years ago, Florida was
Speaker 1: under Spanish rule. It was a sanctuary if the slaves
Speaker 1: were able to escape the British colonies, but after Florida
Speaker 1: came unto the control of the United States in eighteen nineteen,
Speaker 1: President Thomas Jefferson sent the American troops to help capture
Speaker 1: former slaves and returned them to their chains. Slavery ended
Speaker 1: with the Civil War, but segregation and ideas of white
Speaker 1: supremacy remained strong. Centta Florida was especially attractive to former Confederates.
Speaker 1: Marvin Dunn is the author of a history of Florida
Speaker 1: Through Black Eyes. Center Florida was a was a magnet
Speaker 1: for people who had lost the Civil War because keith
Speaker 1: Any Florida was untouched by the war. Uh and center
Speaker 1: Florida out of the cattle, that said, the Confederate army.
Speaker 1: So businessman and Senta Florida made money during the war
Speaker 1: while other parts of the South are being destimated by
Speaker 1: the war. By nineteen twenty, Florida's economy was booming. The
Speaker 1: citrus industry was exploding, so a lot of black people
Speaker 1: were chanted into some to Florida for that reason to work.
Speaker 1: The town of a Koe, with its lush orange groves
Speaker 1: and farms nestled along Stark Lake, was especially attractive a
Speaker 1: number of black people, black men in particular, had managed
Speaker 1: to get property orange gross on their own. There's a
Speaker 1: man by the name of Moses Norman. Now, Moses Norman
Speaker 1: had lived in this community for some thirty years. He
Speaker 1: was not just some you know, young guy. He was
Speaker 1: a well established individual, well known in town. He had
Speaker 1: his own car. He was known to be a labor broker.
Speaker 1: Most Norman at the time was driving around in a
Speaker 1: car that was worth about seventy five to a thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: Pamela Grady is the executive director of the July Perry Foundation.
Speaker 1: That's a Mercedes, that's a Jaguar, you know. That's what
Speaker 1: he was driving around. And at a time when nobody
Speaker 1: even had cars, there was only maybe one or two
Speaker 1: other cars in the whole town of Koeie, you know,
Speaker 1: and here's this black guy driving through the town, this
Speaker 1: nice car. You know. They had to infuriate them. The
Speaker 1: foundation is named for most Norman's good friend, another prominent
Speaker 1: bleaxis in the koe Julius July Perry. Nothing really happened
Speaker 1: in ol koe without him. Florida State Senator Randolph Bracy.
Speaker 1: He was kind of like a broker or even white
Speaker 1: businessman who wanted to come in and do do some
Speaker 1: farming transactions of what have you. He ran the town.
Speaker 1: July Perry and most Norman were pillars of the Koe
Speaker 1: community history. And Paul artis they were successful individuals. They're
Speaker 1: very hard workers, they were they're very good family men. Um,
Speaker 1: they were highly respected. And the reason I mentioned the
Speaker 1: term highly respected, and this is the most important element
Speaker 1: I think about Most Norman and Perry and why why
Speaker 1: they represent such a threat to white supremacy Because these
Speaker 1: two exceptionally respected men were involved in an exceptionally threatening
Speaker 1: activity helping black citizens vote. In the wake at World
Speaker 1: War One, black Floridians had organized a remarkable statewide voter
Speaker 1: registration movement, and the movement really crested and built momentum
Speaker 1: as African American soldiers returned from from Europe. A lot
Speaker 1: of black lessons came back to the South and the
Speaker 1: third in Europe, and they were not going to accommodate
Speaker 1: themselves to the racism that was in there in that community.
Speaker 1: And Most Norman and Gelatter in particular were among those
Speaker 1: who came back with that attitude. The two veterans joined
Speaker 1: hundreds of other Fluoridians who were mobilizing to combat white supremacy.
Speaker 1: In nineteen twenty, there is a huge black voter registration
Speaker 1: drive that supported not only by the black community but
Speaker 1: also by white Republicans, not all of them, most of them.
Speaker 1: This was at a time when most African Americans were
Speaker 1: members of Abraham Lincoln's Republican Party. In many places in
Speaker 1: the South, blacks not even joined the Democratic Party, And
Speaker 1: thanks to the Nineteenth Amendment, women would be voting for
Speaker 1: president for the first time in nineteen twenty. This is
Speaker 1: a whole new voting block and that includes black women.
Speaker 1: And what it's doing is it's causing a lot of tension.
Speaker 1: People don't always accept change, and so with this you
Speaker 1: also see sort of a resurgence and an ongoing rise
Speaker 1: with white supremacy. In the Kuklux Klan clan members were
Speaker 1: not the only white supremacists trying to hold back the
Speaker 1: new wave of black voters. Once the white you know,
Speaker 1: white white elites and white media and white leaders realize
Speaker 1: this is happening, they use their op ed space, their
Speaker 1: their banner headlines. White women, It's up to you to
Speaker 1: save the republic. This is the greatest crisis in our
Speaker 1: nation's history, and a typical op ed will say, Uh,
Speaker 1: white ladies, do you want your Negro washer women to
Speaker 1: lord over you, to take control? Do you want that
Speaker 1: Negro custodian to marry your daughter? The threats heated up
Speaker 1: as the election approached. White supremacies in a crisis, they're
Speaker 1: much more honest and races today because they're very blunt
Speaker 1: about it. They're like, white supremacy is our way of
Speaker 1: life as an American. Some white Republicans in Orlando, including
Speaker 1: a local judge named John Cheney, helped July Perry and
Speaker 1: most Norman organized black voters. About a month before the
Speaker 1: echoing massacre, they receive a letter from the Florida ku
Speaker 1: Klux Klan signed by the ku Klux Klan that basically says,
Speaker 1: stop or else, sir, while stopping in your beautiful little
Speaker 1: city this week, I was informed that you are in
Speaker 1: the habit of going out among the negroes of Orlando
Speaker 1: and delivering lectures explaining to them how to assert their rights.
Speaker 1: The grand master of the Florida ku Klux Klan reminded
Speaker 1: them what happened when white people tried to help black
Speaker 1: voters during reconstruction you will remember that these things forced
Speaker 1: the loyal citizens of the South to organize clans of
Speaker 1: determined men who pledged themselves to maintain white supremacy and
Speaker 1: to safeguard our women and children. We shall always enjoy
Speaker 1: white supremacy in this country, and he who interferes must
Speaker 1: face the consequences. So there is a threat, there is
Speaker 1: and this is this is a primary starts. We have
Speaker 1: the original in our museum collection that that that states this.
Speaker 1: Just days before the Echoing massacre, there are marches throughout
Speaker 1: the state of Florida. If you ask a black person
Speaker 1: to register a vote Florida, you're asking them to take
Speaker 1: the risk. You're asking them to risk their lives. You're
Speaker 1: asking them to risk their livelihoods, You're asking them to
Speaker 1: risk their physical safety. On the morning of November, two
Speaker 1: black stittens of a Koe, Florida made a heroic decision.
Speaker 1: They ignored the clan marches, the torches, the letters, and
Speaker 1: the threats. They prepared to exercise their most fundamental democratic
Speaker 1: right to vote. They knew it would be challenging, but
Speaker 1: they had no idea of the horrors that awaited them.
Speaker 1: This three part limited series is brought to you by
Speaker 1: Procter and Gamble. Procter and Gamble believes that words alone
Speaker 1: won't create change, but stories do seek share and expect
Speaker 1: the whole truth of black life widen the screen to
Speaker 1: widen our view. Well. On election day, from what we know,
Speaker 1: you know Most Norman and July Perry are with African
Speaker 1: Americans who are trying to vote. Historian Paul Ortisse. And
Speaker 1: what happens in the koe is again similar to what
Speaker 1: happens in many parts of the state. People are standing
Speaker 1: in in a line. We don't know how many people,
Speaker 1: and if they're black, you're not allowed to vote. Historian
Speaker 1: Marvin Dunn. This was a plan attempt to challenge the
Speaker 1: denial of the right to vote in Coe and Center
Speaker 1: more broadly. Armed white deputies declared themselves poll monitors, poll
Speaker 1: workers challenged black voters. Names mysteriously disappeared from the voter rolls,
Speaker 1: poll taxes, it was claimed, had not been paid, and
Speaker 1: a koe anyone turned away from voting had to go
Speaker 1: to the local Justice of the Peace to contest it,
Speaker 1: and he had conveniently gone fishing that day. Most Norman
Speaker 1: was among the people who tried to cast a ballot,
Speaker 1: and he um goes to the polls to vote, he
Speaker 1: has turned away. His name had been placed on the
Speaker 1: stricken list for voting, and he was never restored. They
Speaker 1: claimed that most Norman, a wealthy landowner deeply involved in
Speaker 1: voter registration efforts, had somehow failed to pay his own
Speaker 1: poll tax. There are conflicting accounts of what happened after
Speaker 1: most Norman was turned away at the polls. One of
Speaker 1: the biggest problems with this event is how few true
Speaker 1: primary source documents there are because why they weren't kept intentionally.
Speaker 1: It's it's intentional erasure of the history Black Systens of
Speaker 1: a Koe and their descendants have spent decades trying to
Speaker 1: unearth what exactly happened on election Day nineteen twenty. Pamela Grady,
Speaker 1: I'm a resident of a Koe and know nobody knows
Speaker 1: these people. You have forty thousand residents, you know, and
Speaker 1: most of them not even know that the land they're
Speaker 1: living on. What happened? To history? To rich history, Pamela
Speaker 1: Schwartz collected oral histories and documents for an exhibition at
Speaker 1: the Orange County Regional History Center. There are hundreds and
Speaker 1: hundreds of versions. We actually took one hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: nine and synthesize them into one mega account in the exhibit.
Speaker 1: So it's this huge, like twenty ft wall. It's like
Speaker 1: fourteen pages of text, and it's all in line. You
Speaker 1: can see where the twists and the faults of memory
Speaker 1: and the lies and all of these different ways the
Speaker 1: story has um changed over one hundred years. In one
Speaker 1: version of the story, most Norman returned to the Pulse
Speaker 1: with his shotgun, sparking an altercation with armed white deputies.
Speaker 1: In another more likely account, Norman took his case to
Speaker 1: Judge John Cheney and Orlando historian Paul Artis. Again, he's
Speaker 1: trying to find ways to let, you know, people in
Speaker 1: power know that this corruption is happening in a koe,
Speaker 1: you know. But the problem is, even he was able
Speaker 1: to contact similar Judge Chaney, there's really nothing Judge Chaney
Speaker 1: could do. Um if he's able to contact the supervisor
Speaker 1: of elections in Orange County, that guy is not going
Speaker 1: to do anything. Judge Cheney is said to have advised
Speaker 1: Norman to go back to the polls in a Koe
Speaker 1: and get the names of people preventing black citizens from voting.
Speaker 1: This is likely to file a complaint to lawsuit. But
Speaker 1: it was a very dangerous errand according to one version
Speaker 1: of events, Norman enlisted his good friend July Perry to help.
Speaker 1: The most important thing I think about most Norman Julie
Speaker 1: Perry is that black people trusted them, and both men
Speaker 1: felt irresponsibility because of that trust to see things through
Speaker 1: on election day. And that is a testament to their
Speaker 1: you know, their in her courage. I mean, they could
Speaker 1: have stayed home. The safest thing for black people on
Speaker 1: election day was stay home, but neither man played it safe.
Speaker 1: Historian Marvin Dunn. The two men went back to the polls. Uh,
Speaker 1: they were armed white men there who chased them away.
Speaker 1: There was some sort of a confrontation and this men,
Speaker 1: these two men went to July Darry's home retreated there.
Speaker 1: Pastor Stephen Nunn is the founder of the July Perry
Speaker 1: Foundation and president of its board. He's July Perry's great grandson.
Speaker 1: His grandmother. July Perry's daughter, Carritha, was a teenager when
Speaker 1: Mois Norman was turned away at the polls. She told
Speaker 1: me that he wasn't allowed to vote, and a conflict
Speaker 1: took place, and in the process that was a fight
Speaker 1: that broke out. That fight ended up at the Perry's
Speaker 1: front doorstep. She told me that ultimately, uh, there was
Speaker 1: a rumor that spread around town that um, the black
Speaker 1: residents of Okoe had gathered at July Perry's home to
Speaker 1: um discuss a vote to go back and demand their
Speaker 1: right to vote, if you would, um what she said
Speaker 1: was not true in the following hours that this white
Speaker 1: mob actually they called themselves a posty, had been deficized
Speaker 1: actually to go and find out about the disturbance of
Speaker 1: the polls. And they knew that July Parry and those
Speaker 1: norminal were among the activists involved in voting. So the
Speaker 1: attention of the white people sort of focused on them,
Speaker 1: but they weren't really sure about it was involved in
Speaker 1: terms of the the rumor that Blakes were armed at
Speaker 1: July Perry's home that circulated very quickly in the white
Speaker 1: community following the confrontation at the polls. Now Anna's Burlie Jones,
Speaker 1: black man who was a former slave who was zonned
Speaker 1: by lucle white man and Burlie Jones who at Clinton Central.
Speaker 1: Uncle Tom told the white people that blacks were arming
Speaker 1: themselves and were ensconced into left her at his home
Speaker 1: and that's where the mob went to to let hers house.
Speaker 1: At some point later that night, after the polls closed,
Speaker 1: a white mob, an armed white mob, goes to the
Speaker 1: home with his friend and fellow labor broker, July Perry,
Speaker 1: and violence breaks out. Bull shots are fired. She told
Speaker 1: me that at a certain point in time, Uh, some
Speaker 1: of the white residents men of the city of o
Speaker 1: Koe came to their home and basically made a demand
Speaker 1: for father to come outside, and they wanted to talk,
Speaker 1: and of course he refused and said no. And she
Speaker 1: did tell me that there was an attempt to force
Speaker 1: someone attempted to force their way in, and there was
Speaker 1: some gunfire. There's a lot of people that are still
Speaker 1: trying to cover up the story and so because so
Speaker 1: for example, when I first came to Florida in the
Speaker 1: summer UM, I was told by white middle class people,
Speaker 1: even scholars, Oh, Paul, why are you coming to Florida.
Speaker 1: We've had such progressive race relations here. We didn't have
Speaker 1: Jim Crow like they had it. You know, you should
Speaker 1: go to Uh, we're not nearly as bad as Mississippi, Paul. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know you should go to Georgia. What was as
Speaker 1: funny because I had already been I've already done field
Speaker 1: work in Mississippi, are already done field work in Georgia
Speaker 1: because when I talked to black Floridians, they told me,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, who is telling you this nonsense? You know?
Speaker 1: Or it was just as bad as any other state
Speaker 1: in terms of race relations. So there was really no
Speaker 1: place for black people to find sanctuary from that. That
Speaker 1: kind of the kind of white violence, you know that
Speaker 1: that occurred in Orange County and other places. So it's
Speaker 1: an organized attack. It's organized assault on neighborhoods, you know,
Speaker 1: on on a community. And the next episode of the
Speaker 1: election day massacre, she said that, um, the gunfire was
Speaker 1: so great that you could see the bully tracers coming
Speaker 1: through all angles in the house, just flying all over
Speaker 1: the place. I mean, basically, people are defending their homes
Speaker 1: as this white you know, a pair of military operation
Speaker 1: and is tearing through their their their neighborhoods, and they
Speaker 1: began to torch and burn and loot and pillage this
Speaker 1: entire community. There is no way we will ever factually
Speaker 1: probably know how many black people were killed that night.
Speaker 1: Records were intentionally not kept. One man told him I
Speaker 1: shot seventeen Negroes. He shot seventeen himself, and he was
Speaker 1: bragging about it. Basically, you had a choice. You can
Speaker 1: leave and get shot or you can stay. Barn uh
Speaker 1: and they burned to death. We don't like to use
Speaker 1: the term ethnic cleansing unless we can use in Eastern Europe, right,
Speaker 1: but it happens here. This episode of Flashback, the Election
Speaker 1: Day Massacre, was written by Sean Braswell and voiced by
Speaker 1: me Eugene S. Robinson, was produced by Maeve mcgoran and
Speaker 1: or A Oh Diggi Zua. Chris Hoff engineered our show.
Speaker 1: H