The Ocoee Massacre: Election Day, 1920

July Perry was a successful farmer and labor contractor in Ocoee, Orange County, Florida. He owned land — a significant achievement in a state where white landowners had long worked to prevent Black land ownership — and contracted other workers for citrus grove labor. He was, in other words, a Black man who had built independent economic power, which made him a particular target for white intimidation.

The 1920 presidential election was the first in which Black women could legally vote in addition to Black men. Efforts by Black community leaders — including the NAACP — to register Black voters in Ocoee and surrounding Orange County had produced a heightened awareness of Black voting rights. White Democrats in the county had responded with voter registration challenges, poll taxes, and physical intimidation at the courthouse.

On November 2, Perry attempted to vote. He was turned away by election officials who claimed irregularities with his registration. He returned home. That night, a white mob came to his house.

When the armed white mob arrived at Perry's home, he was armed and defended himself. Two white men were killed in the exchange. This defense — which in any neutral legal context would have been clearly justified — became the pretext for the destruction of the entire Black community of Ocoee.

Through the night and into the following day, the mob burned every Black-owned home, church, and business in Ocoee. The Ocoee Methodist Episcopal Church — the center of community life — was burned. Families fled into the orange groves and swamps. July Perry was captured by the mob, tortured, and lynched. His body was hung on the road as a warning. The exact number killed is unknown; local testimony collected decades later suggests the death toll was far higher than official accounts acknowledged, with bodies disposed of in various ways to prevent counting.

The Ocoee Massacre received almost no national press coverage in 1920. The same newspapers that reported extensively on the 19th Amendment and women's voting rights that Election Day made no mention of the massacre. Local Florida newspapers reported it briefly, framed as a "race riot" instigated by Black residents. No one was prosecuted for any killing, arson, or property theft.

The land that Black residents had owned — including Perry's acreage — was acquired by white neighbors at pennies on the dollar or simply occupied without any legal transaction. The town of Ocoee remained almost entirely white for decades. The massacre was not acknowledged in any official capacity until the Florida legislature held a hearing in 1994. A formal legislative apology was passed in 2018.

Ocoee today is a suburb of Orlando — a majority-minority city whose Black population has returned, though without any of the property or wealth that was stolen in 1920. The 2018 apology contained no reparations provision.