Flashback: History's Unintended Consequences iHeartPodcasts

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After the horrific violence of Election Day, 1920, in Ocoee, Florida, hundreds of Black families fled the town, never to return. White farmers took ownership of their lands. And the crimes of the mobs of white vigilantes - lynching, murders, arson, theft - were covered up for almost a century. Until now.

Before the presidential election of 1920, the Klan marched through Florida to warn Black citizens not to vote. Newspapers across the state issued the same warning. When a prominent Black resident, Mose Norman, tried to cast his vote in the town of Ocoee, a mob of white vigilantes descended on the community. They exacted a terrible vengeance, starting with the family of a local Black leader, July Perry.Photo credit: Orange County Regional History Center

The worst incident of election violence in American history happened a century ago on Election Day, 1920 in the town of Ocoee, Florida. The victims were hundreds of Black residents. The perpetrators were their white neighbors. And the reason was that Black citizens had gone to the polls and tried to vote.

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