The Ocoee Massacre: The Ballot, the Mob, and the Theft of Black Land

On November 2–3, 1920, a Euro-American mob attacked the African-American community of Ocoee, Florida, after they attempted to exercise their right to vote. The violence, remembered as the Ocoee massacre, left an unknown number of Black people dead, destroyed homes and community institutions, and set in motion the expulsion of almost the entire Black population. The Orange County Regional History Center identifies it as the largest incident of voting-day violence in United States history.

The massacre was also an act of dispossession. Black families lost homes, orange groves, and land they had spent years acquiring. An Associated Press investigation found that Black families driven from Ocoee lost 330 acres and 48 city lots. As Melissa Fussell’s examination of property and probate records demonstrates, dispossession extended beyond forced flight: court proceedings helped transfer property away from its rightful heirs, while a racial restriction prevented July Perry’s family from buying back land they should have inherited.

A community built around land, labour, and faith

By 1920, Ocoee had two principal Black neighborhoods: the northern community, known as the Methodist Quarters, and the southern community, known as the Baptist Quarters. A 2019 historical review commissioned by the Florida Legislature identified 255 African-American residents and 560 Euro-American residents in the 1920 census. Although census undercounting means these figures may not capture everyone who lived there, they provide a firmer basis than the frequently repeated claim that Ocoee had approximately 500 Black residents.

Among the community’s prominent residents were Julius “July” Perry and Moses “Mose” Norman, both originally from South Carolina. Perry was a church deacon, labor leader, landowner, and member of the local fraternal lodge. Norman owned and worked a 100-acre family orange grove and was among Ocoee’s earliest automobile owners. Both men occupied important positions in the community’s civic and economic life.

Their standing mattered. Black residents were not simply supplying labor to the surrounding citrus industry; some were acquiring land, building businesses, and asserting a measure of economic independence. Norman’s prosperity, in particular, challenged the subordinate position that racial oppression prescribed for Black people.

Organising to vote amid Klan intimidation

In the weeks before the 1920 presidential election, Republican organizers worked with Black community leaders to register African American voters. Perry and Norman participated in local voting-rights efforts. Their organizing took place against a background of racial intimidation and renewed Ku Klux Klan activity.

The Klan staged marches in Florida and threatened Republican leaders who supported Black political participation. William R. O’Neal, an Orlando attorney and Republican politician, received a threatening letter condemning his efforts to teach Black residents how to assert their rights. A copy was sent to John Moses Cheney, an attorney, former judge, and Republican candidate for the United States Senate. Cheney also reported that Ocoee’s Klan had warned there would be “serious trouble” if Black residents attempted to vote.

On November 2, Mose Norman went to the polls and was refused a ballot on the stated grounds that he had not paid his poll tax. He traveled to Orlando to consult Cheney, who advised him to return and record the names of people denied the vote, together with the names of the officials responsible.

Norman returned to the polling place and was again denied the opportunity to vote. Accounts differ about the confrontation that followed. One states that a constable confiscated a shotgun from Norman’s car; another describes Euro-American men finding the weapon and assaulting him. Norman escaped and went to Perry’s home before fleeing Ocoee.

The attack on July Perry’s home

Later that day, Deputy Sheriff Clyde Pounds deputized a group of Euro-American residents to arrest Perry and Norman. Sam Salisbury, a former Orlando police chief, led the group to Perry’s house. Norman had already escaped. An armed confrontation followed at the home, where Perry was with his wife, Estelle, and their daughter, Coretha, whose name also appears as Caretha in historical records. Salisbury and several other members of the group were wounded; two Euro-American men, Leo Borgard and Elmer McDaniels, were killed. Perry and his 19-year-old daughter also suffered gunshot wounds.

The attackers withdrew and called for reinforcements. During the interval, Perry and his wife left the house. His daughter remained behind and was subsequently taken into custody. Perry was found in a nearby sugarcane patch and transported to an Orlando hospital for treatment. After treatment, Perry remained in the custody of the Orange County Sheriff’s Office. A mob seized him and lynched him in Orlando in the early hours of November 3. He was hanged and shot.

Estelle and Coretha were taken to the county jail in Tampa, reportedly for their protection and to prevent further violence. They nevertheless remained imprisoned until November 30, when they were released after a grand jury cleared them of charges connected with the deaths of the two Euro-American men.

Burning the Black community

During the night of November 2–3, a mob burned the northern Black neighborhood. More than 20 houses, two churches, and a fraternal lodge were destroyed. The burning continued into the early morning, with reports placing the destruction as late as 4:45 a.m.

Black residents were killed in the shootings and fires; others fled for their lives. The exact death toll remains unknown. The Florida Legislature’s historical review found reported Black fatalities ranging from three to nearly 60. Two Orlando ministers reported hearing of 35 deaths, while surviving records also document people burned to death in their homes. These figures reflect the limits and contradictions of the surviving evidence, not a settled count.

The violence did not end with the destruction of the northern neighborhood. Threats and further attacks drove remaining Black residents from Ocoee over the following months. The southern community’s survival of the initial burning did not protect its residents from intimidation and forced departure.

Expulsion and the loss of land

The expulsion was reinforced by restrictions on survivors’ return. According to a later published account, members of the Ku Klux Klan established a blockade around Ocoee to prevent displaced Black residents from returning to their homes. As survivors were kept away, their property passed into European American ownership, in some cases with deed restrictions prohibiting its future conveyance to Black people. The blockade thus reinforced the dispossession: families were driven out and then prevented from reclaiming what they had left behind.

Within two weeks of the massacre, newspaper advertisements were offering Ocoee groves and land for sale. Property transfers continued through the following years. Surviving records do not always establish whether owners received payment or whether any payment approached a fair price. July Perry’s family provides a particularly stark example. The court appointed Bluford Sims as administrator of Perry’s estate. Three years later, Perry’s surviving family petitioned to recover the estate, stating that they had not been compensated. When the court required an accounting, Sims’s guardian, Eva Sims, failed to provide it. No further court action followed the missed deadline. A deed restriction also prohibited selling or conveying the property to a Black person. Perry’s family was therefore denied not only its inheritance but also the chance to buy the property back.

Investigation without accountability

The NAACP sent Walter White to investigate. Arriving in Florida on November 5, he used his ability to pass as European to pose as a prospective purchaser of orange-grove property and interview people who knew about the violence. His findings later informed congressional testimony about the suppression of Black voting rights. Investigations brought no accountability for the massacre. A federal inquiry concluded that qualified Black voters had not been intimidated or prevented from voting. An Orange County grand jury likewise reported finding no evidence identifying those responsible for the killings. No one was prosecuted for Perry’s lynching or the massacre.

Mose Norman survived and eventually settled in New York City, where he died in 1949. The community he had helped build was effectively destroyed.

A lasting rupture

The demographic consequences were profound. The 1930 census recorded just two Black residents in Ocoee, compared with 255 in 1920. The Florida Legislature’s review found that Black residents did not begin returning in the census record until the 1970s.

The Ocoee massacre was not only an assault on Black voting rights; it was also an act of dispossession—land theft enforced through racial terror.

By killing Black residents, burning their homes and institutions, and forcing survivors to flee, the attackers stripped families of the ability to occupy, defend, or freely dispose of their property. Land and orange groves passed into European American ownership as threats and exclusion prevented displaced owners from returning. Whether property was seized outright or acquired through sales made under duress, these were not ordinary transactions: violence had destroyed the conditions of consent. Families lost not only their homes and livelihoods but also the land-based wealth they could have passed to future generations.

Sources:
Fussell, Melissa. “Dead Men Bring No Claims: How Takings Claims Can Provide Redress for Real Property Owning Victims of Jim Crow Race Riots.” William & Mary Law Review 57, no. 5 (2016): 1917–1956. https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3652&context=wmlr
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocoee_massacre
http://atlantablackstar.com/2014/10/09/8-heartbreaking-cases-where-land-was-stolen-from-black-americans-through-racism-violence-and-murder/2/
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https://oppaga.fl.gov/documents/reports/19-15.pdf
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https://www.aclufl.org/campaigns-initiatives/remembering-ocoee/
https://www.orlandoweekly.com/news/dead-wrong-2263967/
https://www.vice.com/en/article/that-time-white-people-burned-and-pillaged-a-black-community-on-election-day/