TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Schools and museums would have to take steps to publicize the 1920 Ocoee Election Day riot, which happened after a black man tried to record the names of others blocked from voting in the Central Florida community, under a bill ready for a Senate vote.
Before the 1920 general election, the Ku Klux Klan grand master of Florida warned a politician working to register African-American voters that “there would be serious trouble” if he continued, according to a Senate staff analysis of the bill (SB 1262).
The violence unfolded after Mose Norman, an African-American unable to vote because of not paying a poll tax, was seen recording names of others who had not been permitted to vote in his precinct. After an altercation with the local constable or a group of white residents, Norman went to the home of July Perry, another African-American resident, before fleeing Ocoee.
“Perry was captured in a sugarcane patch near his house and taken to a hospital to treat his gunshot wounds, after which he was placed in the custody of the Orange County sheriff and was lynched, hanged and shot by a mob,” according to a staff analysis of the bill.
Black residents of the town died as a result the violence and others fled. Introducing the measure on the Senate floor Wednesday, Sen. Randolph Bracy, D-Orlando, said educating the public about what happened is critical because “if we don’t know our history, we’re doomed to repeat it.” Florida “has a terrible history of voter suppression” and “has the highest incidence of lynchings of any state,” Bracy, who is black, added.
The legislation would direct the education commissioner’s African American History Task Force to examine ways in which the history of the Ocoee violence could be taught. The task force would be required to submit recommendations to the commissioner by March 1, 2021.
The bill also would direct the secretary of state to determine ways in which museums could present the history of the riot and to see inclusion of the history in Smithsonian Institution. Perry was “a man ahead of his time,” Bracy said during Tuesday’s floor session.
“I just think attention needs to be brought to this,” he added. The Senate could vote on the measure as early as Thursday. A similar proposal has not been heard in House committees.