November 7, 2020 • 22 mins
Before the presidential election of 1920, the Klan marched through Florida to warn Black citizens not to vote. Newspapers across the state issued the same warning. When a prominent Black resident, Mose Norman, tried to cast his vote in the town of Ocoee, a mob of white vigilantes descended on the community. They exacted a terrible vengeance, starting with the family of a local Black leader, July Perry. Photo credit: Orange County Regional History Center
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
I'm Sean Braswell. Welcome to Flashback. We're doing something a
little different in this episode. We're running a special series
about the worst incident of election violence in American history,
an event that is almost forgotten today. It happened a
century ago on election Day nine and the town of
a Koe, Florida. The victims were hundreds of black residents.
(00:28):
The perpetrators were their white neighbors. And the reason was
that black citizens had gone to the polls and tried
to vote. Our grandmother was one of the most rags females,
(00:52):
and the word grave is probably not strong enough. She
was not afraid of anything, nor anybody nobody. That's Janice
Nelson and her brother, Pastor Stephen Nunne. Their grandmother was
Caretha Perry Caldwell. She was a constant presence in their
(01:14):
lives growing up in Tampa, Florida. She just decided, for
whatever reason, to talk to Steve and I when we
were kids, to just, you know, tell us this story,
really the story of what happened in Caretha's hometown of Koe,
Florida on Election Day nineteen. I remember driving over to
(01:46):
her home that particular morning because I wanted her to
make me breakfast. She had the old iron skillet pan
and she would fry up some reb bacon and grits
and eggs. Here's what Caretha Perry wanted her grandchildren to know.
When she was a teenager, her father, Julius July Perry,
and his good friend Mose Norman were prosperous landowners. There
(02:09):
were leaders of the sizable black community in a central
Florida town called the Koe. On election day nineteen twenty,
Mose Norman tried to vote. A few hours later, an
armed white mob surrounded the Perry's family farmhouse. Caretha Perry
told her grandchildren that before long, the white men were
shooting into the house. It was surreal. I really I
(02:33):
couldn't believe it. I couldn't wrap my head around it.
And yet I knew it was real. It makes sense
to me now. Then it didn't really make sense. You know.
I knew this, I knew it happened, but I just
didn't take that in at that time. As a child,
I couldn't. I couldn't fanthom all of that. Caretha told
them she was shot in the arm. She wanted me
(02:56):
to know about the bullet will so she would always
show me in point to it, and then of course
after she did that, she would tell me, um, you
know about what took place. I saw her pain, but
I also knew she wanted me to know how courageous
she was, and she was willing to stay there next
to her dad to the death if it. If it
(03:18):
was going to take that, she had every intent to
do that. It hurt her, and yet it drove her
also to be very angry, and she did not really
want to mention the name of o Koe or ever
returned to Okoe again. I'm Eugenius Robinson. You're listening to
(03:40):
the Election Day Massacre from Ozzie Media. Warning. This episode
contains graphic descriptions of racial violence. There was some sort
of a confrontation and they knew that July heard and
those nominal among the activists, Bobbin thought, so the attention
(04:01):
of the white people sort of focused on them. Marvin
Dunn is the author of a history of Florida through
Black Eyes. The initial group that went out was led
by an n named Sam Salisberry, who was a well
known white man, very popular man, not a law enforcement officer,
but was deputized to go out and find out what
happened to the the Poles. Sam Salisbury was a veteran, a
(04:24):
former Army colonel. Marvin Dunn says, a heavily armed white
man he led to July Perry's farmhouse called themselves a posse.
Paul Ortiz, a historian at the University of Florida, did
seminal research on the incident. In a sense, what they're
trying to just pacify him, to kind of take him
out of the equation. They feel if they can silence him,
(04:48):
then they can stop all this voting nonsense and save
white supremacy. What happened at July Perry's house? Why Why
did it get so violent so quickly? Pamela Schwartz, chief
your read of the Orange County Regional History Center put
together a major exhibition of the Koe massacre. Who actually
shot who? Who actually said what? There's so many different versions.
(05:15):
July Perry's daughter, Caretha Janice Nelson, and Stephen Nunn's grandmother
was inside the house when the mob showed up. She
told me that at a certain point in time, um,
some of the white residents men of the city of
o Koe came to their home and basically made a
demand for a father to come outside, and they wanted
(05:37):
to talk. I've always owned a gun, and you know,
I grew up in a gun culture. And you know,
someone comes up to my doorstep and tells me that
I need to to come out of my house unarmed,
and they want to talk with me. Um, that's a threat.
And when Sam Salisbury demanded July Parr to come out
of this house, Perry came out of his house and
(06:00):
Um asked to go back inside to get his coat.
And that's one of this this struggling food. Someone attempted
to force their way in and there was some gunfire,
both from Um those outside of the house firing in,
and from her and her father inside of the house
firing out. She said that the gunfire was so great
(06:25):
that you could see the bullet tracers coming through all
angles in the house, just flying in all over the places.
Careita was not the only person shot that night. Her
father was shot multiple times. He told her that he
wanted her to get her mother and the children out
of the house. Careita's mother, Estelle, was not in good health.
(06:49):
Careita's brothers and sister were young children. I felt like
he was saying, you know what on the captain of
the ship here and so guess what, you guys, go
get out if you can. But I've got to stay.
I think even if he hadn't been wounded he brought,
he would he was gonna stay in fight to the
bitter end no matter what. She recalls asking herself and him,
(07:12):
you know how we're going to get out because they
were surrounded, and he said, pray, and the Lord I'll
show you away. And she says she started praying, as
the Lord, help us to get out of or help
me to get my mom and my brother's and sister
out of here. And she said, Um, there was a
caphole or some type of an open means in the
bottom of the door. She lifted the little hatch, and
(07:36):
she said that there was a beam of light light
from the moon, but it was just this beam of
light that shined the path through this particular high growth
or corn field. And she said they proceeded on their
stomachs to crawl through that path that had been illuminated.
(07:59):
And she said while they were couli, she said, um,
we could see the feet of the men who were
surrounding the home. Some of them, we could literally see
their feet and we could hear them talking and and
still firing, and yet they never saw us. Caretha, A Stelle,
and the children escaped through the field. Members of the
(08:21):
white mob would later claim that quote thirty seven armed
negroes in quote participated in the shootout, but it's more
likely that it was just the Perry family and a
couple of hired hands who held off the assailants. At
least six members of the white mob were wounded in
the gun battle. Two others died. They were killed that
(08:42):
friendless fire. Other white men shot through the house and
killed their comrades. And I found this out by examining
the funeral home records of the Manuel Derek, which included
a note from the sheriff documenting that the men had
been killed by friendly fire. It's one of the few
records of what happened that night. You know, there's all
(09:03):
of these details that will never factually, no, there's just
no way, because no records and accounts were kept, no
full investigation was done. Perry's family made it to safety,
but not for long. July, Perry's wife and daughter, Estella
and Caretha, respectively, are captured. They're taken to the jail
(09:24):
in Tampa, Caretha and a Stell were charged with murdering
the two members of the white mob who were killed.
The charges were eventually dropped, but not before Caretha and
her mother had spent a month in jail. She said
they came in and told them that they were free
to go, but to never ever return to Okoe again.
(09:47):
Years later, Careta Perry was asked by an Orlando newspaper
if she had ever gone back to a Koe. She replied, no, God,
I don't ever want to see it, not even on
a map. H In Mildred Board was a little girl
(10:33):
in the next town over a Papca, Florida. Ms. Board
has since passed away, but she recorded in oral history
a few years ago. We're playing excerpts of the courtesy
of the Orange County Regional History Center. It's one of
just a few firsthand accounts of the events of that
election day. The night of the riot, most Non came
(10:57):
to this house, and I remembered that he had on
a night shirt. And I don't know whether my dad
came with him or he got that ball, and they
brought him on hire and my dad said to him, well,
most how did you get out of Okoe. He said,
(11:20):
just like a rabbit in the wind, I shall never
forget it. Most Norman eskipped from a koe in his car.
There were reports that he eventually settled up north in
New York City. July Perry did not escape. He meted
out of the farmhouse into a nearby sugarcane field, but
he was soon discovered. His little dog betrayed him. When
(11:46):
July Perry was shot, he went down in the cane
padge and Jip was the little dog's name. He went
down and barred, and that's when the mob found him
in the king page. The deputized mob arrested Perry. There
(12:08):
are so many different stories they shot him there, but
they supposed to have carried him at the two the
police station in Okoe, but you know that can remember
there wasn't a police station in the court. More likely
(12:31):
July Perry was taken to the police station in Orlando,
a much bigger town. Word gets to Orlando as far
away as Orlando that there's a Negro uprising. But that's
a code for Negroes are trying to vote, and so
Carlo's of white people begin h mobilizing from as far
away as Orlando. I mean drive to Koe. There's an
(12:55):
electronic cybordin in Orlando and it's used in election day,
but not only to tally votes. Then someone changes that
sign board to direct people to a Koe. Fifty car
loads of white men from Orlando descended on the black
neighborhoods and a Kowe. It's like, you know, I'm a
(13:17):
third generation military veteran, and so when I look at
places like a Koe, I see intelligence, I see supply,
I see planning. And what I mean by this is
that carloads of white individuals, many of them, start from Orlando,
and they drive all the way into Koe and they
knew who to target, they knew who the leadership was named.
(13:45):
Drive to a Koe and they began to torch and
burn and loot and village this this entire community. That
evening and into the night, white vigilantes sit fire to
black people's homes, businesses, and churches. In a cold they
(14:07):
shot at people trying to escape the flames. I mean, basically,
people are defending their homes as this white you know,
para military operation is tearing through their their their neighborhoods.
People put up a defense in a koe. They don't
just lay down and offer themselves up today to the
(14:27):
firing squad, if you will. But we could smell somebody
say well, how would you smell the smoke? As they
act can sumel the smoke coming from Africa. So it
was something that you could sume out of smoke. You
knew something was going on. It's one of the most
(14:48):
dramatic days in American history all across the state. You
know what happens in for it is really an example.
It's kind of a metaphor for American you know, American
history and systematic purging, ethnic cleansing of black people. That's
really the outcome. We don't like to use the term
ethnic cleansing unless we can use in Eastern Europe, right,
(15:12):
We don't like to use the word of gram unless
we can use it in you know, in Africa or
you know, someplace else. But it happens here. There is
(15:34):
no way we will ever factually probably know how many
black people were killed that night. Records were intentionally not kept.
Given the current research, we as historians will say that
at least four black people were murdered, but many accounts
put the death toll much higher. Between thirty and sixty
(15:54):
black residents were killed. Historian Marvin Dunn, they've learned such
on the Black Union. We don't know if they were
suppos burned up to those houses or not. Probably that weren't. Basically,
you had a choice. You can leave and get shot,
or you can stay and burn. Uh. And they burned
to death, and they were put in Popper's caskets and
(16:15):
buried in a mass grave. Once the white mob started
burning people's homes and churches, people left. Every single black
person in a Koe that night, living or visiting, lost something,
their sense of safety, their home, their property, whether they
were a renter or a landowner, um sometimes their life.
(16:36):
Those who survived the flames and gunfire escaped into the
surrounding swamps. The Florida Times Union reported the next day
the black survivors were seen walking along highways many miles
from a Koe. In the weeks and months that followed,
virtually every single black person fled the town. And then
it looked like refugees from from a war zone. Now
(16:58):
those those are the pans. We have people leaving in
wagons with all of their possessions. White people lining the roads, cheering, jeering,
you lost. We won. A day that had begun with
hopes of a better life and a stronger democracy in
Florida came to an almost unthinkable end as a coe
(17:20):
burned into the night. Back in Orlando, another violent crowd
had gathered. July Perry is in mortal danger in the
jail in Orlando. He is taken by a lynch mom,
(17:41):
Pamela Schwartz. He is brutalized. There are many versions of
what happened to him, some very very descriptive and graphic,
but he is taken, is lynched. He's hanged. If you
leave a Papa and going through the country Club road
of block from Colonial, there was an old tree. I
don't know where's the same old creep, but there is
(18:03):
a big old tree right now. They are turned him
up and let him hang from that tree for a wow.
The tree was near the entrance to the Orlando Country Club,
by some accounts, in view of the house of John Cheney,
a white judge who tried to help black citizens of
a coale vote. The story went that July was intentionally hanged, um,
(18:26):
you know, in view of Chinese house, but that it
was across this lake and it was up by Country
Fund at the time, the way the trees and everything were,
like when we look back at historic photos of that
lake in different things like, I don't think anybody could
have seen anything from the judge's house. So I think
that that is a thing that became part of the lore.
(18:47):
But there was an unmistakable message. That's what was about
historian Paul Ortiz. It was really about sending a lesson
to the entire black and white and his communities. You know,
whether it was in the Southwest or in Florida, wherever.
We're in charge here and we don't follow the law,
(19:09):
we are the law. A local black undertaker took down
Perry's corpse from the tree the next day. Oh, he
had done so many things to his body. There wasn't
too much left hanging because they had just put his
body up in pieces, but they took whatever they could
(19:34):
and am show. They embombed him and they buried him.
The terror inflicted on the black sessens of a coo.
We didn't end with election day. The story has always
gone that everybody left immediately the black community left, they
never came back. The story after it's far more nuanced
(19:57):
and horrific. I think personally um then that there's an
official cover up that goes on for decades after the event.
There's just so so much to the story. I think
the most horrific thing is that we don't know, and
we don't know by design. By design, we don't have records,
We don't have names for the people who were killed.
(20:18):
We don't know what homes burned and which ones don't.
We don't know what happened to people and where they went.
What we do know is that the terror in a
Koe was not carried out only by people in masks
and robes. Much of it was committed openly, and the
campaign to keep black people from voting in Florida was
not limited to anonymous letters from the Ku Klux Klan.
(20:40):
Editorials were printed in the most prominent newspapers in the state.
When the Atlanto Sentinel, the Mommy Heralds say that white supremacy,
that our foundation, the foundation of our civilization, White supremacy
is in danger. We have to take them seriously. And
when we take them seriously, we realize that they're going
to do anything they can to break up any challenge
(21:03):
to their power system. And this is why so many
white people descend upon it color because they're trying to
send a lesson to that not only are you not
going to vote today, You're never going to vote. What
happened in the Koe was not just about one election.
What happened next would take years to orchestrate and execute.
(21:29):
In Part three of the Election Day Massacre, where did
everybody go? And then you look for the families and
the histories and you try to find where they are
today and you can't find people. You can't find them.
They just lost and gone. Nobody's ever held responsible in
any way, shape or form for what happens out of Koe.
It was government supported landa The script is says thou
(21:52):
shalt not steal. They stole it and they need to
give it back. M This episode of Flashback, The Election
Day Massacre was written by Sean Braswell and voiced by
me Eugene S. Robinson, was produced by Maeve mcgoran and
or A Oh Diggi Zua. Chris Haff engineered our show.
(22:29):
H
I'm Sean Braswell. Welcome to Flashback. We're doing something a
little different in this episode. We're running a special series
about the worst incident of election violence in American history,
an event that is almost forgotten today. It happened a
century ago on election Day nine and the town of
a Koe, Florida. The victims were hundreds of black residents.
(00:28):
The perpetrators were their white neighbors. And the reason was
that black citizens had gone to the polls and tried
to vote. Our grandmother was one of the most rags females,
(00:52):
and the word grave is probably not strong enough. She
was not afraid of anything, nor anybody nobody. That's Janice
Nelson and her brother, Pastor Stephen Nunne. Their grandmother was
Caretha Perry Caldwell. She was a constant presence in their
(01:14):
lives growing up in Tampa, Florida. She just decided, for
whatever reason, to talk to Steve and I when we
were kids, to just, you know, tell us this story,
really the story of what happened in Caretha's hometown of Koe,
Florida on Election Day nineteen. I remember driving over to
(01:46):
her home that particular morning because I wanted her to
make me breakfast. She had the old iron skillet pan
and she would fry up some reb bacon and grits
and eggs. Here's what Caretha Perry wanted her grandchildren to know.
When she was a teenager, her father, Julius July Perry,
and his good friend Mose Norman were prosperous landowners. There
(02:09):
were leaders of the sizable black community in a central
Florida town called the Koe. On election day nineteen twenty,
Mose Norman tried to vote. A few hours later, an
armed white mob surrounded the Perry's family farmhouse. Caretha Perry
told her grandchildren that before long, the white men were
shooting into the house. It was surreal. I really I
(02:33):
couldn't believe it. I couldn't wrap my head around it.
And yet I knew it was real. It makes sense
to me now. Then it didn't really make sense. You know.
I knew this, I knew it happened, but I just
didn't take that in at that time. As a child,
I couldn't. I couldn't fanthom all of that. Caretha told
them she was shot in the arm. She wanted me
(02:56):
to know about the bullet will so she would always
show me in point to it, and then of course
after she did that, she would tell me, um, you
know about what took place. I saw her pain, but
I also knew she wanted me to know how courageous
she was, and she was willing to stay there next
to her dad to the death if it. If it
(03:18):
was going to take that, she had every intent to
do that. It hurt her, and yet it drove her
also to be very angry, and she did not really
want to mention the name of o Koe or ever
returned to Okoe again. I'm Eugenius Robinson. You're listening to
(03:40):
the Election Day Massacre from Ozzie Media. Warning. This episode
contains graphic descriptions of racial violence. There was some sort
of a confrontation and they knew that July heard and
those nominal among the activists, Bobbin thought, so the attention
(04:01):
of the white people sort of focused on them. Marvin
Dunn is the author of a history of Florida through
Black Eyes. The initial group that went out was led
by an n named Sam Salisberry, who was a well
known white man, very popular man, not a law enforcement officer,
but was deputized to go out and find out what
happened to the the Poles. Sam Salisbury was a veteran, a
(04:24):
former Army colonel. Marvin Dunn says, a heavily armed white
man he led to July Perry's farmhouse called themselves a posse.
Paul Ortiz, a historian at the University of Florida, did
seminal research on the incident. In a sense, what they're
trying to just pacify him, to kind of take him
out of the equation. They feel if they can silence him,
(04:48):
then they can stop all this voting nonsense and save
white supremacy. What happened at July Perry's house? Why Why
did it get so violent so quickly? Pamela Schwartz, chief
your read of the Orange County Regional History Center put
together a major exhibition of the Koe massacre. Who actually
shot who? Who actually said what? There's so many different versions.
(05:15):
July Perry's daughter, Caretha Janice Nelson, and Stephen Nunn's grandmother
was inside the house when the mob showed up. She
told me that at a certain point in time, um,
some of the white residents men of the city of
o Koe came to their home and basically made a
demand for a father to come outside, and they wanted
(05:37):
to talk. I've always owned a gun, and you know,
I grew up in a gun culture. And you know,
someone comes up to my doorstep and tells me that
I need to to come out of my house unarmed,
and they want to talk with me. Um, that's a threat.
And when Sam Salisbury demanded July Parr to come out
of this house, Perry came out of his house and
(06:00):
Um asked to go back inside to get his coat.
And that's one of this this struggling food. Someone attempted
to force their way in and there was some gunfire,
both from Um those outside of the house firing in,
and from her and her father inside of the house
firing out. She said that the gunfire was so great
(06:25):
that you could see the bullet tracers coming through all
angles in the house, just flying in all over the places.
Careita was not the only person shot that night. Her
father was shot multiple times. He told her that he
wanted her to get her mother and the children out
of the house. Careita's mother, Estelle, was not in good health.
(06:49):
Careita's brothers and sister were young children. I felt like
he was saying, you know what on the captain of
the ship here and so guess what, you guys, go
get out if you can. But I've got to stay.
I think even if he hadn't been wounded he brought,
he would he was gonna stay in fight to the
bitter end no matter what. She recalls asking herself and him,
(07:12):
you know how we're going to get out because they
were surrounded, and he said, pray, and the Lord I'll
show you away. And she says she started praying, as
the Lord, help us to get out of or help
me to get my mom and my brother's and sister
out of here. And she said, Um, there was a
caphole or some type of an open means in the
bottom of the door. She lifted the little hatch, and
(07:36):
she said that there was a beam of light light
from the moon, but it was just this beam of
light that shined the path through this particular high growth
or corn field. And she said they proceeded on their
stomachs to crawl through that path that had been illuminated.
(07:59):
And she said while they were couli, she said, um,
we could see the feet of the men who were
surrounding the home. Some of them, we could literally see
their feet and we could hear them talking and and
still firing, and yet they never saw us. Caretha, A Stelle,
and the children escaped through the field. Members of the
(08:21):
white mob would later claim that quote thirty seven armed
negroes in quote participated in the shootout, but it's more
likely that it was just the Perry family and a
couple of hired hands who held off the assailants. At
least six members of the white mob were wounded in
the gun battle. Two others died. They were killed that
(08:42):
friendless fire. Other white men shot through the house and
killed their comrades. And I found this out by examining
the funeral home records of the Manuel Derek, which included
a note from the sheriff documenting that the men had
been killed by friendly fire. It's one of the few
records of what happened that night. You know, there's all
(09:03):
of these details that will never factually, no, there's just
no way, because no records and accounts were kept, no
full investigation was done. Perry's family made it to safety,
but not for long. July, Perry's wife and daughter, Estella
and Caretha, respectively, are captured. They're taken to the jail
(09:24):
in Tampa, Caretha and a Stell were charged with murdering
the two members of the white mob who were killed.
The charges were eventually dropped, but not before Caretha and
her mother had spent a month in jail. She said
they came in and told them that they were free
to go, but to never ever return to Okoe again.
(09:47):
Years later, Careta Perry was asked by an Orlando newspaper
if she had ever gone back to a Koe. She replied, no, God,
I don't ever want to see it, not even on
a map. H In Mildred Board was a little girl
(10:33):
in the next town over a Papca, Florida. Ms. Board
has since passed away, but she recorded in oral history
a few years ago. We're playing excerpts of the courtesy
of the Orange County Regional History Center. It's one of
just a few firsthand accounts of the events of that
election day. The night of the riot, most Non came
(10:57):
to this house, and I remembered that he had on
a night shirt. And I don't know whether my dad
came with him or he got that ball, and they
brought him on hire and my dad said to him, well,
most how did you get out of Okoe. He said,
(11:20):
just like a rabbit in the wind, I shall never
forget it. Most Norman eskipped from a koe in his car.
There were reports that he eventually settled up north in
New York City. July Perry did not escape. He meted
out of the farmhouse into a nearby sugarcane field, but
he was soon discovered. His little dog betrayed him. When
(11:46):
July Perry was shot, he went down in the cane
padge and Jip was the little dog's name. He went
down and barred, and that's when the mob found him
in the king page. The deputized mob arrested Perry. There
(12:08):
are so many different stories they shot him there, but
they supposed to have carried him at the two the
police station in Okoe, but you know that can remember
there wasn't a police station in the court. More likely
(12:31):
July Perry was taken to the police station in Orlando,
a much bigger town. Word gets to Orlando as far
away as Orlando that there's a Negro uprising. But that's
a code for Negroes are trying to vote, and so
Carlo's of white people begin h mobilizing from as far
away as Orlando. I mean drive to Koe. There's an
(12:55):
electronic cybordin in Orlando and it's used in election day,
but not only to tally votes. Then someone changes that
sign board to direct people to a Koe. Fifty car
loads of white men from Orlando descended on the black
neighborhoods and a Kowe. It's like, you know, I'm a
(13:17):
third generation military veteran, and so when I look at
places like a Koe, I see intelligence, I see supply,
I see planning. And what I mean by this is
that carloads of white individuals, many of them, start from Orlando,
and they drive all the way into Koe and they
knew who to target, they knew who the leadership was named.
(13:45):
Drive to a Koe and they began to torch and
burn and loot and village this this entire community. That
evening and into the night, white vigilantes sit fire to
black people's homes, businesses, and churches. In a cold they
(14:07):
shot at people trying to escape the flames. I mean, basically,
people are defending their homes as this white you know,
para military operation is tearing through their their their neighborhoods.
People put up a defense in a koe. They don't
just lay down and offer themselves up today to the
(14:27):
firing squad, if you will. But we could smell somebody
say well, how would you smell the smoke? As they
act can sumel the smoke coming from Africa. So it
was something that you could sume out of smoke. You
knew something was going on. It's one of the most
(14:48):
dramatic days in American history all across the state. You
know what happens in for it is really an example.
It's kind of a metaphor for American you know, American
history and systematic purging, ethnic cleansing of black people. That's
really the outcome. We don't like to use the term
ethnic cleansing unless we can use in Eastern Europe, right,
(15:12):
We don't like to use the word of gram unless
we can use it in you know, in Africa or
you know, someplace else. But it happens here. There is
(15:34):
no way we will ever factually probably know how many
black people were killed that night. Records were intentionally not kept.
Given the current research, we as historians will say that
at least four black people were murdered, but many accounts
put the death toll much higher. Between thirty and sixty
(15:54):
black residents were killed. Historian Marvin Dunn, they've learned such
on the Black Union. We don't know if they were
suppos burned up to those houses or not. Probably that weren't. Basically,
you had a choice. You can leave and get shot,
or you can stay and burn. Uh. And they burned
to death, and they were put in Popper's caskets and
(16:15):
buried in a mass grave. Once the white mob started
burning people's homes and churches, people left. Every single black
person in a Koe that night, living or visiting, lost something,
their sense of safety, their home, their property, whether they
were a renter or a landowner, um sometimes their life.
(16:36):
Those who survived the flames and gunfire escaped into the
surrounding swamps. The Florida Times Union reported the next day
the black survivors were seen walking along highways many miles
from a Koe. In the weeks and months that followed,
virtually every single black person fled the town. And then
it looked like refugees from from a war zone. Now
(16:58):
those those are the pans. We have people leaving in
wagons with all of their possessions. White people lining the roads, cheering, jeering,
you lost. We won. A day that had begun with
hopes of a better life and a stronger democracy in
Florida came to an almost unthinkable end as a coe
(17:20):
burned into the night. Back in Orlando, another violent crowd
had gathered. July Perry is in mortal danger in the
jail in Orlando. He is taken by a lynch mom,
(17:41):
Pamela Schwartz. He is brutalized. There are many versions of
what happened to him, some very very descriptive and graphic,
but he is taken, is lynched. He's hanged. If you
leave a Papa and going through the country Club road
of block from Colonial, there was an old tree. I
don't know where's the same old creep, but there is
(18:03):
a big old tree right now. They are turned him
up and let him hang from that tree for a wow.
The tree was near the entrance to the Orlando Country Club,
by some accounts, in view of the house of John Cheney,
a white judge who tried to help black citizens of
a coale vote. The story went that July was intentionally hanged, um,
(18:26):
you know, in view of Chinese house, but that it
was across this lake and it was up by Country
Fund at the time, the way the trees and everything were,
like when we look back at historic photos of that
lake in different things like, I don't think anybody could
have seen anything from the judge's house. So I think
that that is a thing that became part of the lore.
(18:47):
But there was an unmistakable message. That's what was about
historian Paul Ortiz. It was really about sending a lesson
to the entire black and white and his communities. You know,
whether it was in the Southwest or in Florida, wherever.
We're in charge here and we don't follow the law,
(19:09):
we are the law. A local black undertaker took down
Perry's corpse from the tree the next day. Oh, he
had done so many things to his body. There wasn't
too much left hanging because they had just put his
body up in pieces, but they took whatever they could
(19:34):
and am show. They embombed him and they buried him.
The terror inflicted on the black sessens of a coo.
We didn't end with election day. The story has always
gone that everybody left immediately the black community left, they
never came back. The story after it's far more nuanced
(19:57):
and horrific. I think personally um then that there's an
official cover up that goes on for decades after the event.
There's just so so much to the story. I think
the most horrific thing is that we don't know, and
we don't know by design. By design, we don't have records,
We don't have names for the people who were killed.
(20:18):
We don't know what homes burned and which ones don't.
We don't know what happened to people and where they went.
What we do know is that the terror in a
Koe was not carried out only by people in masks
and robes. Much of it was committed openly, and the
campaign to keep black people from voting in Florida was
not limited to anonymous letters from the Ku Klux Klan.
(20:40):
Editorials were printed in the most prominent newspapers in the state.
When the Atlanto Sentinel, the Mommy Heralds say that white supremacy,
that our foundation, the foundation of our civilization, White supremacy
is in danger. We have to take them seriously. And
when we take them seriously, we realize that they're going
to do anything they can to break up any challenge
(21:03):
to their power system. And this is why so many
white people descend upon it color because they're trying to
send a lesson to that not only are you not
going to vote today, You're never going to vote. What
happened in the Koe was not just about one election.
What happened next would take years to orchestrate and execute.
(21:29):
In Part three of the Election Day Massacre, where did
everybody go? And then you look for the families and
the histories and you try to find where they are
today and you can't find people. You can't find them.
They just lost and gone. Nobody's ever held responsible in
any way, shape or form for what happens out of Koe.
It was government supported landa The script is says thou
(21:52):
shalt not steal. They stole it and they need to
give it back. M This episode of Flashback, The Election
Day Massacre was written by Sean Braswell and voiced by
me Eugene S. Robinson, was produced by Maeve mcgoran and
or A Oh Diggi Zua. Chris Haff engineered our show.
(22:29):
H
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