In the late 1800s Blacks migrated to Florida from other southern states. They were looking for better opportunities. By 1920, Ocoee, Florida was home to hundreds of Blacks. Some had bought their own land with the money they earned through Florida’s booming agricultural business.
That year something else happened in Ocoee. Blacks went to the polls and tried to vote in a Presidential election. Republican Sen. Warren G. Harding was up against Democratic Gov. James M. Cox. Women and Blacks were legally allowed to cast a ballot. Their votes could shape the outcome of the election. In Ocoee, their neighbors turned on them.
There was a massacre: killings, bloodshed and a public lynching. This made November 2, 1920, the single bloodiest day in modern American political history.
This is the story of the Ocoee Massacre.