Ocoee massacre
The Ocoee massacre occurred on November 2, 1920, the day of the U.S. presidential election. The attack started after efforts to suppress Black citizens from voting. Mose Norman, a prosperous African-American farmer, tried to vote but was turned away twice on Election Day. The massacre has been described as the \”single bloodiest day in modern American political history\”.
About Ocoee massacre in brief
The Ocoee massacre occurred on November 2, 1920, the day of the U.S. presidential election. The attack started after efforts to suppress Black citizens from voting. Mose Norman, a prosperous African-American farmer, tried to vote but was turned away twice on Election Day. A white mob surrounded the home of Julius \”July\” Perry, where Norman was thought to have taken refuge. After Perry drove away the white mob with gunshots, killing two men and wounding one who tried to break into his house, the mob called for reinforcements from Orlando and Orange County. Most estimates total 30–35 black people killed. Most African American-owned buildings and residences in northern O coee were burned to the ground. Other African Americans living in southern O coe were later killed or driven out on threat of more violence. The massacre has been described as the \”single bloodiest day in modern American political history\”. The town is in Orange County near Orlando, Florida, The town essentially became an all-white town. For almost a century, many descendants of survivors were not aware of the massacre that occurred in their hometown. The rest of the African Americans gave up on trying to vote and left the polling place.
Later, during the evening, the former police chief of Orlando, Sam Salisbury, paraded up and down the streets, growing more disorderly and unmanable. The Ku Klux Klan was experiencing a revival and had established many new chapters since 1915. Three weeks before election day, the KKK warned the African American community that \”not a single Negro would be permitted to vote.\” Judge John Moses Cheney, a Republican running for the United States Senate from Florida, had started a voter registration campaign to register African Americans to vote in Florida, because they had supported the Republican Party since Reconstruction. The organization threatened Judge Cheney prior to the election. Hundreds of other African Americans fled the town, leaving behind their homes and possessions. The town was dominated by Southern white Democrats since the end of Reconstruction, but, in the weeks leading up to the presidential election of 1920, African Americans throughout the South were registering to vote for the first time in more than a century. The voters had to prove they were registered by appearing before the notary public, R. C. Biegelow, who was regularly sent on fishing trips so that he was impossible to find.
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This page is based on the article Ocoee massacre published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 26, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
