Tribute to Black History Month 2023
By
John C Abercrombie
Today is day 28 of 28 and we have included a tribute to the series in addition to the post of the day.
We discuss this and so much more every Sunday. For information on how to join the convresation, see below:
We discuss this and other aspects of race in America every Sunday at 4:00 pm Eastern, 1:00 pm Pacific. Ways to connect with us. Remember you can check out past podcasts on our archives.
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To see the entire series, use this link.
Our normal weekly posts were superseded by a tribute to the theme of Race Massacres and Riots. While this may not be a series devoted to feel good, it is necessary in order to make it known to those completely unaware of the challenges that face the empowerment of all American Citizens being able to enjoy the benefits that we all are entitled to.
It is pleasant to tell about those who have truly distinguished themselves, it is not a complete picture. We are competing against those who have been blessed with rights and privileges that have been withheld from so many. This as not been a fair race, yet these events that many fail to recognize that have been major reasons.
We see the subtly of racism in some of the most unlikely places. Our segregated neighborhoods were assisted by rules imposed that did not allow financing of any housing project that accommodated more than one race. Redlining that prevented banks from financing even the improvement of Black housing.
We see Social Security that did not cover major categories of Black employment. It was not designed for those in farming or domestic work which is the majority of work offered to Blacks.
We have a number of people that still have nightmares over the treatment of medical issues because the horror of the Tuskegee Experiment where men were allowed to die painful deaths so the ill effects of syphilis could be studied.
Well meaning people recoil at the thought that they have what is commonly called White Privilege. Many seriously don’t see it while others can’t understand why they claim they don’t see it. It is almost like trying to prove a negative. Whites often don’t see it because in many cases it is a case that they are getting what everyone deserves in contrast to those denied what should be available to all.
In keeping with our mission of educating people, we find that those in need are often the ones neglected. To those ends, we will feature Black women we should all know 2023 version. Follow us daily during March for these informative insights on overlooked heroes.
Use the link below to follow the 31-day series on Women
we should all know:
To see the 31 Black women we should all know, click this link
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Ocoee Massacre – 1920
By
John C Abercrombie
In the weeks leading up to the presidential election of 1920, African Americans throughout the South were registering to vote in record numbers. At the same time the Ku Klux Klan was experiencing a revival and had established many new chapters since 1915. Three weeks before election day, the KKK warned the African American community that “not a single Negro would be permitted to vote.”
Judge John Moses Cheney, a Republican running for the United States Senate from Florida, had started a voter registration campaign to register Blacks to vote in Florida, because they had supported the Republican Party since Reconstruction. Mose Norman and July Perry, both “prosperous Black landowners in Ocoee,” led the local voter registration efforts in Orange County, paying the poll tax for those who could not afford it. In an effort to preserve White one-party rule, the Ku Klux Klan “marched in full regalia through the streets of Jacksonville, Daytona and Orlando” to intimidate opponents. The organization threatened Judge Cheney prior to the election.
Sam Salisbury was a police chief in Orlando, Florida. A native of New York, Salisbury served in the U.S. military and was known as Colonel Sam Salisbury. He was a White supremacist and a member of the Ku Klux Klan, Salisbury bragged about his involvement in the violent oppression and intimidation of Blacks attempting to vote in the previous 1920 election. He was one of the leaders of the events leading up to the Ocoee massacre. He was injured in an attack he led on July Perry’s home in Ocoee
On November 2, 1920, during the United States presidential election, White men attacked Black residents in Ocoee, Florida, a town located in Orange County near Orlando, Florida.
It is estimated that between 30 and 35 Blacks were killed. Most Black owned buildings and residences in North Ocoee were burned to the ground that day. Those in Southern Ocoee were killed later or driven out of town by threat of more violence being used against them, making Ocoee essentially an all-White town, like a Sundown town. The massacre has often been described as the single bloodiest day in modern American political history.
The purpose, of course, was to prevent Blacks from voting. Such an American way of showing love to your fellow citizens. Black organizations had been conducting voter registration drives for a year.
In November 1920, Mose Norman, a prosperous Black farmer, tried to vote but was turned away twice on Election Day. Norman was among those working on the voter drive. A White mob surrounded the home of Julius “July” Perry, where Norman was thought to have taken refuge. After Perry drove away the White mob with gunshots, killing two men and wounding one who tried to break into his house, the mob called for reinforcements from Orlando and Orange County. The mob laid waste to the Black community in northern Ocoee and eventually killed Perry. They took his body to Orlando and hanged him from a light post to intimidate other Black people. Hanging the body in plain sight was yet another terrorist action to intimidate Blacks. Norman escaped, never to be found. Hundreds of other Blacks fled the town, leaving behind their homes and possessions.
“Most of the people living in Ocoee don’t even know that this happened there”, said Pamela Schwartz, chief curator of the Orange County Regional History Center, which sponsored an exhibit on it. For almost a century, many descendants of survivors were not aware of the massacre that occurred in their hometown.
Blacks were met with resistance from the White community when they attempted to vote on election day. Poll workers challenged whether Black voters were really registered. The voters had to prove they were registered by appearing before the notary public, R. C. Biegelow, who was regularly sent on fishing trips so that he was impossible to find. However, African Americans, including Mose Norman, persisted but were “pushed and shoved away” from the polls.
Norman contacted Judge John Cheney, who told him that interference with voting was illegal and told him to write the names of the Blacks who were denied their constitutional rights, as well as the names of the Whites who were violating them. Norman later returned to the polling place in Ocoee with a shotgun. Whether the shotgun was taken from Norman is not entirely clear, but Whites at the polls drove off Norman using his own shotgun.
The White community began to form a mob and paraded up and down the streets, growing “more disorderly and unmanageable”. The rest of the African Americans gave up on trying to vote and left the polling place. Later during the evening, Sam Salisbury, the former chief of police of Orlando, was called to lead a lynch mob to “find and punish Mose Norman. He later proudly bragged about his part in the events.
The white mob was on its way to Norman’s home when someone informed them that their target had been seen at the home of July Perry. The mob, by then numbering about 100 men, arrived at Perry’s house demanding that Perry and Norman surrender. When they received no answer, they attempted to break down the front door. Perry, who had been warned about the mob, fired gunshots from inside the home in self-defense. Exactly how many people were defending the house is uncertain; the Whites estimated that there were several armed African Americans. Zora Neale Hurston wrote that Perry had defended his home alone. Sam Salisbury knocked the back door open and was shot in the arm, becoming the first white casualty. Two other whites, veterans Elmer McDaniels and Leo Borgard were killed when they also tried to enter through the back door. Their bodies were found hours later in the backyard.
The White mob withdrew and put out a call for reinforcements to Whites in Orlando, Apopka, and Orange County, either calling them by phone or sending for them by car. During the two- to three-hour lull while the Whites were recruiting other men, July Perry, injured in the conflict, attempted to flee with the help of his wife into a cane patch. He was found by the White mob at dawn and arrested. After Perry was treated at a hospital for his wounds, he was taken by a White mob from a vehicle while being transferred to a jail. They lynched him, and left his body hanging from a telephone post beside the highway. Norman was never found. Much of the trouble was attributed to “outsiders” from Winter Garden and Orlando.
With reinforcements, the White mob took the conflict to the rest of the Black community in northern Ocoee. The “White paramilitary forces surrounded the northern Ocoee Black community and laid siege to it. They set fire to rows of Black houses; those inside were forced to flee and many were shot by Whites. At least 20 buildings were burned in total, including every Black church, schoolhouse, and lodge room in the vicinity. Black residents fought back in an evening-long gunfight lasting until as late as 4:45 A.M., their firearms later found in the ruins after the massacre ended. Eventually, Black residents were driven into the nearby orange groves and swamps, forced to retreat until they were driven out of town. The fleeing sought refuge in the surrounding woods or in the neighboring towns of Winter Garden and Apopka, which had substantial populations of Black people.
The siege of Ocoee claimed numerous Black victims. Langmaid, a Black carpenter, was beaten and castrated. Maggie Genlack and her pregnant daughter died while hiding in her home; their bodies were found partially burned underneath it. Roosevelt Barton, a Black hiding in July Perry’s barn, was shot after the mob set fire to the barn and forced him to flee. Hattie Smith was visiting her pregnant sister-in-law in Ocoee when her sister-in-law’s home was set on fire. Smith fled, but her sister-in-law’s family was killed while they hid and waited for help that never came.
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Ocoee Massacre
The Ocoee Massacre: A Documentary Film | WFTV
The atrocity in the rural settlement started on Nov. 2, 1920. An untold number of people were killed, Black and white. It led to the lynching of one of Ocoee’s most successful Black businessmen, Julius ‘July’ Perry, in downtown Orlando. Described as the “single bloodiest day in modern American political history,” it brought about the forced removal of hundreds of Black citizens from Ocoee.
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Book
Stories Untold: Escape from Slavery
Stories Untold is a riveting story of love, intrigue, and triumph over insurmountable odds.
1809 West Africa: Crown prince Macati son of King Zaki of Kapora falls in love with princess Awat of Wagombe. As the young couple plan the most spectacular wedding ceremony ever, beautiful Nyoka, Zaki’s second wife has other plans for them.
Weeks to the fabulous wedding ceremony, prince Macati, princess Awat and most of their wedding party are chained on separate slave ships bound for Brazil and USA. Never to become King and Queen of Kapora, but to spend the rest of their living years separated from those who love them and toiling for those who love them not.
King Zaki dies in a desperate attempt to save the young couple. With Zaki dead and his crown prince Macati enslaved in Brazil, Nyoka’s son Ika becomes king, with his domineering mother as the real power behind the throne. Sometimes, pretty faces come with ugly hearts.
Anyone considered a threat to their power end up on slave ships bound for the Americas and Caribbean islands. That includes Macati’s mother and his baby brother. The new King becomes the regional Pombeiros. A term Portuguese slave traders use to describe an African who sells other Africans into slavery.
Macati must escape slavery, reunite with Awat in Virginia USA, and return to regain his throne and save his people from tyranny.
Stories Untold by Enitan J Rotimi, a descendant of returnees maneuvers his characters around actual events of those who escaped slavery in Brazil, USA and Jamaica and returned to West Africa between 1816 and 1844. A time when Pombeiros targeted returnees for sale back into slavery because a returnee fetched more money on the auction block than a first generation African. The returnee already understands the language of the task master and the rules of the plantation while the freeborn African captive must first be broken then forced to learn the language of the new overlord
How they escaped slavery, returned to Africa, outmaneuvered the Pombeiros and rose to political and economic prominence in West Africa is one of many stories untold in history class.
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Our mission is to provide those historical facts that have been omitted from history. Believing that America is strong because of contributions by all groups and individuals.
In addition to the lack of information, there seems to be a campaign to promote the disenfranchisement of groups by eliminating the contributions, mistreatment and inclusion. Instead promoting negative depictions which in the absence of other information paints a highly unfavorable picture.
We provide information that exists but is not included in mainstream history. Many wonder about the validity of these stories, so we include videos to enhance the experience and books to allow you to take advantage of additional materials that have existed over time.
To those ends, the books can be purchased from our partner Amazon. It is possible to not only read about the book, but to sample them as well, read a section or listen before deciding if it is one that you like. Click on the link. Note: many of these books are available in several forms, such as hard cover or soft cover, Kindle – eBooks that can be read on your smartphone or other device free with a free download, or Audible where the books are read to you. Again, they can be delivered instantly and enjoyed on phones or other devices with a free download.
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Book
Emancipation Betrayed: The Hidden History of Black Organizing and White Violence in Florida from Reconstruction to the Bloody Election of 1920
In this penetrating examination of African American politics and culture, Paul Ortiz throws a powerful light on the struggle of black Floridians to create the first statewide civil rights movement against Jim Crow. Concentrating on the period between the end of slavery and the election of 1920, Emancipation Betrayed vividly demonstrates that the decades leading up to the historic voter registration drive of 1919-20 were marked by intense battles during which African Americans struck for higher wages, took up arms to prevent lynching, forged independent political alliances, boycotted segregated streetcars, and created a democratic historical memory of the Civil War and Reconstruction. Contrary to previous claims that African Americans made few strides toward building an effective civil rights movement during this period, Ortiz documents how black Floridians formed mutual aid organizations―secret societies, women’s clubs, labor unions, and churches―to bolster dignity and survival in the harsh climate of Florida, which had the highest lynching rate of any state in the union. African Americans called on these institutions to build a statewide movement to regain the right to vote after World War I. African American women played a decisive role in the campaign as they mobilized in the months leading up to the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. The 1920 contest culminated in the bloodiest Election Day in modern American history, when white supremacists and the Ku Klux Klan violently, and with state sanction, prevented African Americans from voting. Ortiz’s eloquent interpretation of the many ways that black Floridians fought to expand the meaning of freedom beyond formal equality and his broader consideration of how people resist oppression and create new social movements illuminate a strategic era of United States history and reveal how the legacy of legal segregation continues to play itself out to this day.
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Bombas
Unbelievable comfort in socks and underwear for men and women
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The Ocoee Massacre: The Truth Laid Bare
It’s taken nearly 100 years for healing to begin from the 1920 Ocoee massacre. Somewhere between the evil of that night and the long-overdue commemorations of today are timeless lessons you might not expect.
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Book
From Here to Equality, Second Edition: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century
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Racism and discrimination have choked economic opportunity for African Americans at nearly every turn. At several historic moments, the trajectory of racial inequality could have been altered dramatically. But neither Reconstruction nor the New Deal nor the civil rights struggle led to an economically just and fair nation. Today, systematic inequality persists in the form of housing discrimination, unequal education, police brutality, mass incarceration, employment discrimination, and massive wealth and opportunity gaps. Economic data indicates that for every dollar the average white household holds in wealth the average black household possesses a mere ten cents.
This compelling and sharply argued book addresses economic injustices head-on and make the most comprehensive case to date for economic reparations for U.S. descendants of slavery. Using innovative methods that link monetary values to historical wrongs, William Darity Jr. and A. Kirsten Mullen assess the literal and figurative costs of justice denied in the 155 years since the end of the Civil War and offer a detailed roadmap for an effective reparations program, including a substantial payment to each documented U.S. black descendant of slavery. This new edition features a new foreword addressing the latest developments on the local, state, and federal level and considering current prospects for a comprehensive reparations program.
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Soul Food Seasonings
Great tasting stuff
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Florida’s Ocoee Massacre: The deadliest election day in American history
Florida’s Ocoee Massacre: The deadliest election day in American history
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Book
Visions Through My Father’s Eyes
If you want to know how my Father was involved in the 1920 Ocoee, FL Massacre, read this book. His whole life, he held no hatred in his heart and taught us to do the same.
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Soul Food Cookbooks
Great taste coming from your kitchen
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Ocoee Massacre: A look back on the state’s little-known violent political, voting history
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Book
Open Wounds: A Story of Racial Tragedy, Trauma, and Redemption
On December 10, 1953, tragedy was visited on a family when Nathaniel Allen was murdered on the Sampit River by his White employer, who lured him into the meeting under the false promise of reconciliation. Allen’s death was recorded as an accidental drowning, a deliberate cover-up of the bullet hole seen by more than one witness.
Three generations later, Phil Allen Jr. revisits this harrowing story and recounts the “baton of bitterness” that this murder passed down in his family.
Through interviews, difficult conversations, and deep theological reflection, Allen takes up the challenge of racism today, naming it for what it is and working to chart a path toward reconciliation.
Open Wounds, and the documentary that accompanies it, is a transformative experience of listening and learning as a grandson looks, laments, and ultimately leads his family and his society forward toward a just and reconciled future. It’s an essential part of our national reckoning with racism and injustice.
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Walking Shoes for Men and Women
A great way to maintain health and comfort
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The 100th Anniversary of the Ocoee, Florida Election Day Massacre
The state of Florida has recently mandated a law requiring that public schools and state institutions teach the history of the Ocoee Massacre. What happened in Ocoee, Florida in 1920? How do the tragic events that transpired in Orange County intersect with the broader histories of the African American freedom struggle as well as today’s efforts at historical truth and reconciliation in the age of Black Lives Matter? Paul Ortiz will draw from his book Emancipation Betrayed as well as more than 20 years of involvement in local history initiatives in Ocoee.
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Current Mini-series on voting
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Voting Tutorial – Click this important link
Voting – Voter Suppression – Click this important link
Voting – Gerrymandering Explained, This post
For Black History Month 2020, we posted daily. These posts focus on the reality of Black life in America after the Civil War culminating in the landmark Brown v Board of Education that changed so many of the earlier practices. To see the posts, click here
For Black History Month 2021, we focused on Black Medical Achievements, Inventors and Scientists. To see those posts, click here.
For Black History Month 2022 we focused on “Health and Wellness”. To see the entire series, click this link.
For Women’s History Month 2022 we introduced you to 31 amazing Black women we should all know. To see the entire series, click this link.
We also posted a 5 part mini-series on the 100th anniversary of one of the most horrific massacres in the history of America. Hundreds of Blacks were slaughtered and 10,000 left homeless in this largely unknown event. To see the posts, click here.
We also did a mini-series on the Schomburg Center for Research a most amazing collection of Black history and culture. To see this mini-series, click here
The Schomburg Center
A world class collection of Black History inspired by a 5th grade teacher who told Arturo Schomburg that there was NO African history. Nothing of value. Schomburg dedicated his life to proving that teacher wrong and Schomburg did an amazing job with his collection.
Schomburg – The man who built a library
To comment or make suggestions on future posts, use Contact Us
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A myth from the days of slavery and reconstruction that Blacks essentially have no ability or desire to control their futures has once again been shown false. However, there lingers a disconnect involving those Blacks who have for generations been exposed to the remnants of a system that has failed them, resulting in Blacks who don’t see the value of voting. This puts them on a collision path with Whites who fear the power that is represented by those they work so hard to deny them of their rights.
There is a great deal of sophistication that seems to be lying dormant, but is coiled and more than willing to strike at anyone bold enough to actually vote.
We presented this subject matter because the myth lingers that ALL citizens had equal chance to achieve the American dream which is a blatant failure to look at the facts and results that are working to deny the entire country the gifts that await them if we can ever face fact, discuss openly the facts and work to all every person to give all that they were by God.