Ocoee massacre

On November 2, 1920, the day of the U.S. presidential election, a white mob in Ocoee, Florida attacked the town's African American residents in what has been described as one of the deadliest incidents of election-related violence in American history. Estimates of the death toll vary widely, from roughly 12 to as many as 56 or more, with contemporaneous investigators for the NAACP recording around 30 dead. Most African American-owned homes, two churches, and a Black fraternal lodge in northern Ocoee were burned to the ground.

The violence followed years of voter registration drives among Black Floridians, led locally by prosperous landowners Mose Norman and Julius "July" Perry, who had paid poll taxes for others and worked with Republican judge John M. Cheney. On election day, Norman was turned away from the polls; accounts differ on whether this was due to his race or a disputed poll-tax claim. After Norman was beaten and had his shotgun taken by whites at the polling place, a false rumor spread — attributed to a Black man named Burley Jones — that armed Black residents were gathering at July Perry's home. Whites were deputized by an Orange County sheriff's deputy to arrest Perry and Norman.

A mob led by former Orlando police chief Sam T. Salisbury surrounded Perry's home. Gunfire from within the home, described by Perry as self-defense, wounded Salisbury and killed two white men, Elmer McDaniels and Leo Borgard, who were attempting to enter through the back door. Perry, along with his wife Estelle Perry and 19-year-old daughter Caretha, were also wounded in the exchange. The mob then withdrew to gather reinforcements from Orlando, Apopka, and elsewhere in Orange County, returning with an estimated 200 additional men.

Over the following hours, the enlarged mob set fire to African American homes, churches, a schoolhouse, and a lodge in northern Ocoee, and residents were shot as they fled the flames. Reported victims of the broader violence include a Black carpenter named Langmaid, who was beaten and castrated; Maggie Genlack and her pregnant daughter, who died hiding beneath a burning home; Roosevelt Barton, shot while fleeing a burning barn; and members of a pregnant woman's family who died while hiding, according to witness Hattie Smith. July Perry, captured while fleeing with his wife's help, was taken into custody, then removed from a vehicle by a mob while being transferred and lynched, his body left hanging near a highway. Norman was never located.

In the aftermath, roughly 500 African American residents were driven from Ocoee, including those in the southern part of town who were reportedly threatened with violence if they did not leave. The town became almost entirely white, and no Black residents are recorded as having resettled there until 1981. No one was prosecuted for the killings; federal agents who later visited were reportedly focused on election fraud rather than the deaths. The mob's leader later became mayor of Ocoee. The events received renewed public attention and commemoration efforts beginning in the late 20th century and continuing through the massacre's 2020 centennial.