A tombstone of a person killed in a massacre against Black voters 100 years ago

Descendants of an Election Day massacre reflect 100 years later

In 1920, a mob burned a Black community in Ocoee, Florida, because an African American man tried to vote. Today their families are still fighting for voter rights.

The grave of Julius “July” Perry lies in the Greenwood cemetery in Orlando, Florida. Perry was murdered 100 years ago in the nearby town of Ocoee during one of the country’s most violent incidents of voter suppression.

On the night of the 1920 election, the Bells, a Black family in Ocoee, Florida, heard that the Ku Klux Klan planned to incite violence in the town. They quickly decided to follow through with a desperate plan: The children would navigate the thick, swampy woods around Ocoee alone and meet their parents in a church in a neighboring town. With gunshots and flames in the distance, 18-year-old Allen Bell guided his six younger siblings through the wet brush while praying the group wouldn’t encounter snakes, alligators, or the KKK.

Before the family departed, Bell’s father ordered him to stay out of sight of any white man. “If they see you, they’ll kill you,” he warned. By the next day, their

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