All He Wanted To Do Was Vote And They Killed Him For It

Body of lynching victim
PushBlack
February 21, 2020

Ocoee, Florida is a small town with a treacherous history. Terrorists destroyed the once all-black town because Black people wanted to vote.

The political climate of the country in the early 1900s was opposite of what it is now. The southern states were Democratic and the northern states were Republican. When northerners moved to the South, they started influencing the politics of the south.

Republicans worked with Black people, helping them register to vote and other issues. The Democrats didn’t like this.

They wrote wild headlines claiming if Black people took over the democracy, it would be run by cooks and servants. The Ku Klux Klan even sent a letter to Republican Judge John Cheney, ordering Republicans to stop their voter registration efforts..

The Republicans continued and the KKK grew angry.

The KKK held rallies, attempting to scare off Black people from voting, but Black people persevered and went on to vote.

The day before Election Day, the KKK made another attempt to stop the Black vote. They stormed through Ocoee, threatening potential Black voters. If Black people voted, the KKK said they would suffer the consequences.

November 2, 1920. Election Day came and Black people, resilient as ever, went out to vote.

Prepared to cast their votes, Black people ran into problems. White men barricaded voting booths and turned Black people away. Even when allowed inside, their names were mysteriously absent from the voter registry.

Many Black people were turned away, but one Black man would not tolerate it: Moses Norman.

Norman, a wealthy businessman, went to Judge Cheney and told him what was happening. Cheney told him to collect the names of those denied from voting and those who did the denying.

Norman went to the voting booth to collect the names, exclaiming, “we will vote, by God!”

Suddenly a fight broke out. Norman was beaten and fled the scene. He went to Julius “July” Perry’s house, a friend of his.

A mob of white people followed him. They surrounded Perry’s house. After exchanging gunfire, they took Perry, while Norman and the rest of Perry’s family escaped.

Perry was arrested, dragged through the streets, and hung on a telephone pole. A note was left next to his body: “This is what we do to niggers who try to vote.”

The Klan continued to terrorize the town over the next few days. They burned down Black houses, Black churches, and Black schools. Many fled from the town though the Klan barricaded almost every square mile. Fifty-six Black people died during the massacre.

By 1930, there wasn’t a single Black person who lived in Ocoee. And, for 18 years, no Black vote was casted in Orange County. It wasn’t until 1981 that a Black person lived in Ocoee again.

The Ocoee Massacre is just one story of horrors done against Black people who simply want to vote. Whether or not you vote, a heavy price was paid for you to have that privilege.

More information about the Ocoee Massacre can be found in the film Ocoee: Legacy of the Election Day Massacre.

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