The Ocoee massacre was an event that happened in Ocoee Florida between November 2nd and 3rd, in 1920. Now being a black person in Florida in 1920 was like taking an enema using a gas hose three times a day. It was really rough down there back then. Florida was one of the states that seceded from the Union and joined the Confederacy in 1861. They didn’t do a lot of fighting down there but the battles they did fight were won by the Confederacy. Another thing is that a lot of black Union troops were sent down there to whip a little bit and make them cry. Unfortunately… well first, are you familiar with the saying you have to bring some to get some? If not, the long version may be a little clearer to you… “You have to bring some azz to “kick” some azz.” Well, we didn’t bring enough. Those Rebs wasn’t faquing around and we lost a lot of good men to those hillbillies and disease. Now we talked about the “Great Betrayal” in our last series “By The Numbers,” and we know that it amounted to removing the federal troops from down south, the same ones who were protecting our civil rights after the war. Well Florida was one of the last states to have their federal troops removed. This is important because like I said earlier, they sent a lot of black troops to fight down there, and I assume they were also the troops that were stationed there after the war to protect African American civil rights before the Great Betrayal. Now if somebody had whipped yo ask me no more questions and you had a chance for payback… well no harm no foul right?
Black Union: Hey hillbilly!! Don’t you see that black woman?!!
Hillbilly: Yes… but…
Black Union: Whoa!! Whoa!! Whoa!! Now wait a damn hillbilly pig wrestling minute boy… Ain’t you forgetting something??!!
Hillbilly: I’m sorry “SUH…” Suh I didn’t say good afternoon because she is walking on the other side of the street…
Black Union: Boy don’t back sass me!! Now go over there and apologize!!
Hillbilly: Mam’ I want to apologize for not….
Black Woman: Ahhhhhhhh!!! Git away from me you scoundrel!!
Black Union: Mam!! What happened??!!
Black Woman: He said he was going to have his way with me and that there was nothing nobody could do about it!!
Black Union: WHAT!! BOY WHEN WE FINISH WITH YOU, YOU GONNA KNOW SOMETHING!! AND IMA TELL YOU RIGHT NOW… IT GONNA HAVE SOMETHING TO DO WITH VIOLATING YOUR CIVIL RIGHTS!! NOW GIT UP AND LET’S GO!!
Black Woman: and he had a gun and a knife too…
Later that evening…
Black Union: Okay here comes another one… go to the other side of the street…
So yeah… no harm no foul…
Give Me The Good Life…
Anywho, after the federal troops left, the black folks were left to fend for themselves. After a while they started making headway and living a reasonably comfortable life in their black communities. So most race riots back then started over accusations that some black man had messed around and found out about approaching a white woman. This riot was different because it involved politics. Now make no mistake about it, there had been other black folks who had been seen swinging on a tree in front of the polling place for trying to register or vote, but Ocoee was the biggest election related race riot in the history of the United States. To the racist down there no voting meant “NO VOTING!!”
Now, Ocoee was a little different from the other Jim Crow era deep mud racist cities and towns of the post antebellum south. In the 1850s a white man named James Stark who was Ocoee first white settler, bought 28 enslaved African Americans to work on his plantation. After the war the children and grandchildren of these slaves were permitted to buy farmland, and this provided them with a certain amount of economic freedom and wealth that other African Americans didn’t have in other parts of the South. Ocoee Black: “Hey baby… I’m getting ready to go down to the store and pick up a couple of steaks… do you need anything?” Ocoee Wife: Which store are you going to… “Po White Folks” or “Big Money Blacks”? Ocoee Black: I’ll probably go to “Po White Folks…” Ocoee Wife: Well, pick up more than just a couple of steaks… see if they got that new book by Kunta Kinte III named “”We Got You Now…” and don’t forget to give them a tip… Ocoee Black: I always give them a tip… Just last week I told them if they want to see any more of my hard earned money, then they need to address me as the Leroy… Prince Of Africa… Ocoee Wife: HA!! HA!! HA!
So yeah, they had it like that. Anyway, with the wealth they had accumulated, they also desired political power. The year was 1920 and blacks all over the United States were registering to vote. In the balance hung the office of President. That year the two candidates were Warren G. Harding and James M. Cox. Now it was in our beat interest to get out there and get our ballots in. The administration which was leaving office was none other than Woodrow “Any Nigra Seen On The Street After Sundown Will Be Shot,” Wilson. That’s right, the same Wilson who let over 25,000 Klansmen march down Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House while he handed out candy souvenir burning crosses to children. Okay, he didn’t hand out any crosses, but he wanted too. Anyway, we couldn’t let that happen again. Our aim was to get Warren G. Harding in office and any one down ballot who was supporting him. His competitor, James M. Cox supported Woodrow Wilson policies and we knew what that meant. By the way, James M. Cox, was the founder of Cox Communications, the cable tv and internet company. So yeah, we supported Harding and all republicans who were on the ticket that year. Now three weeks before the election, the Ku Klux Klan in Orange County, Florida, where Ocoee is located, prohibited any blacks from voting or registering to vote.
Klan: “Any nigra we see trying to vote or register to vote is going to be viewed as being disrespectful to gawd fearing white men. Now we only have two rules that are written in stone… White women are off limits and voting booths are off limits. If we see you in any one of these, there’s gonna be a bunch of Nigras crying all over the place… talking about they didn’t have to cut that off too…”
So yeah… they told the black folks in Ocoee they were prohibited from voting or registering to vote. Now it’s easy for me to talk a lot of crap some 100 years later thinking about what I would do if that was me. I most likely would be a footnote in somebody’s journal…
Student: “Yes professor it’s in here somewhere… Ah yes, here it is, the Klan Grand Dragon wrote it right down here in his journal… “We told that Nigra about his mouth and that’s why we…” well professor, that’s all there is… except for the map…
Professor: “I see… well hand me that shovel, we will start digging right here…”
Yep… that’s what I’d like to think, but you never know. Pulling up to a tree in the back of a wagon, surrounded by very hostile racists talking about we gonna whip yo azz before we hang you “n-word,” is some really sobering shat. It might be a couple of, “But Suh’s let me tell you something… LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING!!” coming out my mouth… So, before we continue, I just want to say, our ancestors were some very strong and very courageous people and I’m glad they stood up to those racist fiends so their children and their children’s children wouldn’t have too.
Money Don’t Change A Thing…
In the 1920 census, there were 800 black folks living in Ocoee at the time and according to some historians, the city was integrated. Yep… there wasn’t a so called black or white part of town. These people lived across the street from each other, albeit blacks on one side and whites on the other, they were still neighbors! Now Ocoee is in Orange County, Florida and Orange County was governed by the Demoklans…I mean Democrats in 1920. This was before Roosevelts New Deal when black folks were still voting for the party of Lincoln, the Republicans. Harding was a Republican, and on the same ballot in Ocoee was a man by the name of John Chaney. Chaney was a judge, and he was running for the U.S Senate as a republican. Now earlier I said there were about 800 African Americans in Ocoee in 1920… and there were around 1180 white folks, probably more white folks because the figure came out of the 1930 census. Anyway, Chaney’s plan was to register as many blacks to vote as he could knowing they would vote republican and could probably tip the balance in his favor. Now remember when I told you the blacks in Ocoee were well off. Well one was “really” well off. His name was Mose Norman. Nope that’s not a type error, his first name was “Mose,” not “Moses.”
Racist: I dare you to put a “s” at the end… I dare ya…”
Now Mose being wealthy, was instrumental in helping hundreds of blacks all over Florida to vote. He would actually give black folks money to pay their poll taxes if they couldn’t afford it. He was well known by the Ku Klux Klan and I hear they called him by his nickname… “Dead Man.” Anyway, it was November 2 and Norman decided he was going to vote in the national elections at a polling spot in Ocoee. So like just a couple of weeks before the elections, the Klan thought they would flex a little bit and marched through several cities in full uniform… I’m talking about sheet and hoods… burning crosses and black stallions, to let the nigras know, we ain’t bull crapping. They had already threatened Chaney and as far as I can tell his name was not on the ballot for the U.S Senate seat after that. Anyway, the first time Norman went down to vote he was turned away. They said something about proving to the County Registrar that they were entitled to vote. Naturally no one could ever find the County Registrar. The white poll workers said he had gone “fishing.” Norman contacted Judge Chaney and told him about the repressive measures the Klan were taking to prevent black folks from voting. Chaney told him their civil rights were being violated and to write down the names of the African Americans and the names of the white folks who were preventing them from voting. So, after Norman did as he was told, he returned to the polling station, this time with a double barrel shotgun with the safety off, a hairpin trigger and some large rusty shells with buckshot in them… Okay I don’t know if it had a hairpin trigger, but I do know that although he took it with him, he did not bring it into the polling station. That was a mistake because they stole his shotgun from his car and drove him off with it. So, during this time, a lot of other blacks were also trying to vote, and they too were turned away. Probably the same ones Norman had helped to register. They also finally gave up and left. Now, the white folks were feeling some kind of way, because the Nigras had been told earlier in the month, they were not going to be permitted to vote, but they came down there anyhow messing up good Christian folks day. It was decided that Norman had to be dealt with because he had riled up the Nigra’s into voting and that couldn’t be tolerated. So, a lynch mob headed by Sam Salisbury, the former chief of police of Orlando, was called to find Norman and stretch that neck. Salisbury was the head of the local Klan and that shat was right up his alley. He and his mob went out looking for Norman but found something they weren’t expecting… something that begins with the letter “B,” and ended with the letter “G”, as in “BANG!! BANG!! BANG!!
Didn”t See That Coming…
So, Salisbury and his mob were on their way to Normans house, when somebody said they had seen him at another black guy’s house named July Perry. By now the mob had numbered about 100 men and they were dead set on making an example out of a moe.
Racist: “Come on out now Nigras, and we won’t make you beg for your lives before we hang ya’ll…”
When Perry didn’t answer, the call was made to go in and get them. A couple of men went to the front door trying to break it down… and that’s when they found out. You see Perry had been warned about the mob before they got there and was prepared. “BOOM!! BOOM!! Perry let it all hang out and the men ran from the front door, but not before one had been shot in the azz, I mean arm. The two other guys that were breaking through the back door must have not gotten the memo… BOOM!! BOOM!! They say it was a lovely service… He shot and killed both of those men. Racist: “You done gone and did something now boy!!” Word went out that Perry and a bunch of Nigra’s were holed up in the house and had just shot one white man and killed two other gawd fearing white men in cold blood. In reality, it was just Perry. Anyway, the mob sent for reinforcements. It took a couple of hours to get the additional men there and after they arrived the mob numbered over 200. So, while they were waiting to gather more men to make an example out of Perry, he slipped out the back and hid in the cane fields. Unfortunately, he was found and arrested? That’s strange indeed… I mean you shot and wounded one Klan and killed two others and all they do is arrest you? Not only that, but you were also injured in the shootout and then they take you to the hospital? What in the Grand Ku Klux of Mississippi and Alabama is going on in Florida? Nothing… They were just faquing with him… After he was released from the hospital, while being transferred to the jail, his car was intercepted, and he was taken out and lynched. They left his body hanging from a telephone pole beside the highway. As for Norman? No one knows until this day what happened to him.
A Day That Will Live In Infamy…
So now that you’ve killed the nigra that dared defend himself against you and your mob, and looked but couldn’t find the main instigator, Mose Norman, what else is there to do? Oh yeah, let’s go burn down the black folks’ homes and chase the rest of them out… and that’s exactly what they did. The went to northern Ocoee and killed and pillaged like they were in a Conan the Barbarian movie. They set fire to rows of black homes. Many were shot escaping the flames. Around twenty black owned building were destroyed, including every church, school and hotel. The only ray of sunshine that did come out of that race fest was that the racist just didn’t go into northern Ocoee and burn and pillage without consequence. They were being fired on too as they went about their burning, looting and killing. A lot of white folks left there with a lot of small round holes in them, and some left with “large” round holes in them. Nonetheless, it was too little too late and all of the blacks in northern Ocoee were forced to flee… but that ain’t all.
After gutting northern Ocoee, the racist went to southern Ocoee and told the blacks there to leave or “ELSE!” The black folks in southern Ocoee were forced to sell and leave immediately. More than 500 families left Ocoee that day, leaving the city nearly all white. Some speculate that the riot was planned so that the whites could take over the wealthier African American farms. It would be 61 years later in 1981 when blacks would return to Ocoee.
The NAACP protested to Congress and the FBI was called in to investigate. It didn’t make any difference as far as the victims were concerned, because the FBI were instructed to only investigate election fraud and not the killings. The NAACP also sent an investigator to Ocoee. He was one of those real light skinned blacks who could pass for white. He went down there, and those hillbillies told him everything. They’re mouths were running so much, he thought somebody might had spiked their hooch with “Xtra Strength Ex-Lax Bowel Cleaner and Azz Deodorant.” They were telling it all. They showed him the body of Perry which was still hanging from a light post, but had a sign attached to it that said, “This is what we do to “n-word” that vote.” Someone mentioned that Chaney lived nearby. Remember Judge Chaney was the one who helped Mose Norman with the voter registration. He said a photographer was there selling photos of Perry’s body for 25¢. The exact number of people killed in the Ocoee Massacre is unknown, although official estimates put the number at between thirty and thirty-five people. Some estimates put the number as high as sixty people and one report says that witnesses saw cartloads of dead blacks folks being put in a mass grave. That was probably some hillbilly reporting that… There is no evidence of mass graves being found at Ocoee at the time of this article. Now one of the most bizarre things I read about the killings is that in 2020 Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law House Bill 1213 (2020), which directs the Commissioner of Education’s African-American History Task Force to determine ways in which the 1920 Ocoee Election Day Riots will be included in required instruction on African-American history. That’s right, the same DeSantis that wants to teach that slavery was a good thing because it provided the slaves with skills they used after they were finally set free at the end of the bloodiest conflict in American history, the Civil War. Yep… that Ron DeSantis. Anyway, the Ocoee Massacre and the aftermath left another bloody stain that will forever be engrained in the annals of racism and bigotry that is part of our American experience.
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