Ocoee and the July Perry Story

As racial tensions rose across the United States before the 1920 presidential election, White supremacists attempted to stop African Americans from voting in Ocoee, Florida. An African American resident, July Perry, fought against such disenfranchisement through a voter registration drive. On November 2nd, a mob destroyed the homes and businesses of African Americans in Ocoee, killing roughly thirty-five African Americans. A mob lynched Perry for attempting to help his fellow African Americans vote. In the years that followed, African American were systematically driven off their land and out of town. Ocoee became known as a “Sundown Town,” barring non-Whites from entry after dark. 

Born in May 1870 in South Carolina, not much is known of July Perry’s early life.¹ His parents were likely born into slavery in South Carolina, and Perry moved to Florida early in his life. Perry and his soon-to-be wife, Coretha, had their first child, Estella Betsy, on March 15, 1898.² They married later that year on October 13, 1898, and eventually had six more children, three boys and four girls in total, over the next two decades.³ One of their daughters, Marrie, sadly died at the age of eight in 1919 of an accidental gunshot wound.⁴ 

 Census records for 1900 and 1910 show that Perry worked as a farmer and contractor in Ocoee.⁵ At that time, African American employment was mostly restricted to farm labor and domestic work, with little room for promotion or advancement.⁶ Perry and Mose Norman acted as intermediaries between Black workers and their White employers and, as such, held good standing in Ocoee’s African American community.⁷ Perry involved himself extensively in his community, actively working alongside Judge John Cheney to improve voter registration. This made Perry a target for White supremacists during the election of 1920. 

Two months before the November election, the Florida Ku Klux Klan, part of a national network of violent White supremacists, sent a warning letter to Judge Cheney to stop lecturing African Americans on their right to vote.⁸ The Klan threatened Cheney with “consequences” should he continue to “interfere” with the rule of White supremacy.⁹ On October 31, 1920, the Klan held rallies across the South. In Orlando, five hundred Klansmen attended rallies and marched through downtown to intimidate and discourage African Americans from voting.¹⁰ There are multiple iterations of what happened on election day, including whether Mose Norman or July Perry was the key player, and it is important to note that many contemporary sources show clear bias.¹¹ The most credible account states that Norman attempted to vote on November 2, 1920, and was turned away by poll workers claiming that he did not pay his poll tax.¹² This was a common tactic used to disqualify African Americans from voting. Norman subsequently drove to meet Judge Cheney, a White ally, who told him to return to the polls and demand the right to vote.¹³  

Accounts vary on what happened after Norman returned and was subsequently turned away for a second time. One account claimed Norman carried a shotgun to the polls, while another said the gun was in his car. In either case, an altercation broke out and Norman fled to the home of his friend, July Perry.¹⁴ Later that evening, Orlando Chief of Police Sam Salisbury led a posse of White residents from Ocoee and Orlando and surrounded Perry’s home.¹⁵ It is not clear as to who fired the first shot, but in the end, two White males were killed, and Perry was severely injured.¹⁶ Throughout the night, lasting into the morning of November 3, a mob of nearly two hundred and fifty White residents of Central Florida gathered. They set fire to the African American sections of Ocoee, burning homes, businesses, and churches. The precise number of Black people killed or injured is unknown. African Americans fled Ocoee for their safety, most never to return.¹⁷   

July Perry and his family were arrested and held in jail.¹⁸ The Orange County sheriff gave the angry White mob the keys to the jail and they, in turn, took Perry from his cell, “tied him to the back of a car...and left his body swinging on a telephone post beside the highway.”¹⁹  Perry's death certificate stated that his death was “by being hung not by violence caused by racial disturbance.”²⁰ His body was subsequently buried in an unmarked grave in section K of Greenwood Cemetery. Perry’s widow and daughter were held in a Tampa jail for nearly a month and were released only after four men attempted to gain admission into their cell.²¹ Upon their release, the Perry family left Ocoee, like other African American residents. Afterward, Ocoee became known as a sundown town for the next fifty years.²² 

Newspaper reports in 1920 shifted blame for these horrid deeds onto the African American community for attempting to exercise their constitutional rights.²³ Perry and his fellow African Americans were vilified as “murderers” while the White perpetrators were depicted as innocent.²⁴ During the Jim Crow Era, the July Perry event was one of many similar tragedies of racial violence occurring across the United States under laws that were later eliminated during the 1960s Civil Rights Movement.   

Today, July Perry’s story is part of Florida’s required instruction on African American History and, more specifically, the “1920 Ocoee Election Day Riots (Massacre).”²⁵ In 2002, Perry was finally given a headstone with a gravesite dedication ceremony held at Greenwood Cemetery.²⁶ More recently, in 2018, a gravesite ceremony honored Perry for his work in voter registration and hailed him as a martyr of the early Civil Rights Movement.²⁷ In 2020, the Orange County Regional History Center held a special exhibition, “Yesterday, This Was Home,” discussing the horrors of the Ocoee Massacre and the trauma experienced by its victims.²⁸ Orlando residents continue to be inspired by July Perry's activism and visit his gravesite at Greenwood Cemetery each election day to honor his legacy and sacrifice.²⁹ 

1. “Twelfth Census of the United States, 1900,” database with images, Ancestry, entry for Julius Perry, accessed September 17, 2023, https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/7602/images/4120050_00231  

2. “Florida, U.S., Death Index, 1877-1998,” database with images, Ancestry, entry for July Perry, accessed September 17, 2023, https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/7338/images/VRDUSAFL1877_0215-0087 

3. “Florida, County Marriages, 1830-1957,” database with images, FamilySearch, entry for July P. Perry and Estella Betsy, accessed September 17, 2023, https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q244-4LZV  

4. “Florida, U.S., Death Index, 1877-1998,” database with images, Ancestry, entry for Marrie Perry, accessed September 17, 2023. https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/7338/images/VRDUSAFL1877_0215-0088

5. “1900 Census,” Ancestry, entry for Julius Perry.; “Thirteenth Census of the United States, 1910,” database with images, Ancestry, entry for July P Perry, accessed September 17, 2023, https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/7884/images/31111_4327452-00888 

6. Jerrell H. Shofner, “Custom, Law, and History: The Enduring Influence of Florida’s ‘Black Code.’” The Florida Historical Quarterly 55, no. 3 (1977): 277–98, accessed September 17, 2023, http://www.jstor.org/stable/30149151

7. Lester Dabbs, “A Report of the Circumstances and Events of the Race Riot on November 2, 1920 in Ocoee, Florida,” MA Thesis, Stetson University, 1969, accessed September 12, 2023, https://archives.stetson.edu/digital/collection/Research/id/19703/rec/5  

8. Grand Master Florida Ku Klux to Judge John. M. Cheney, letter, September 20, 1920, Orlando County Regional History Center.

9. Letter to Judge Cheney, Orlando County Regional History Center.

10. “White Cavalcade’ Marches through Orlando Streets,” Orlando Sentinel, October 31, 1920, 1. 

11. Robert Stephens, “The Truth Laid Bare: Lessons from the Ocoee Massacre,” Pegasus Magazine, March 10, 2022, https://www.ucf.edu/pegasus/the-truth-laid-bare/ 

12. Carlee Hoffman, and Claire Strom, “A Perfect Storm: The Ocoee Riot of 1920,” The Florida Historical Quarterly 93, no. 1 (2014): 25–43, accessed September 17, 2023, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43487653

13. Hoffman and Strom, “A Perfect Storm.”

14. “Ocoee riot” (1937), Narratives of Formerly Enslaved Floridians, 24, Federal Writers' Project of the Work Projects Administration for the State of Florida, accessed September 17, 2023, https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/formerly_enslaved_narratives/24 “Ocoee riot” (1937), Narratives of Formerly Enslaved Floridians.

15. Hoffman and Strom, “A Perfect Storm.”

16. Hoffman and Strom, “A Perfect Storm.”

17. “Yesterday, This Was Home: The Ocoee Massacre of 1920,” Exhibition, Orange County Regional History Center, accessed May 8, 2024, https://www.thehistorycenter.org/exhibition/the-ocoee-massacre/

18. “Ocoee riot” (1937), Narratives of Formerly Enslaved Floridians.

19. “Florida Deaths, 1877-1939,” database with images, Family Search, entry for Julius Perry, accessed September 14, 2023, https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FP9W-SJ2 

20. “Widow of July Perry, Released from Jail,” Orlando Sentinel, December 2, 1920, 1. 

21. “Widow,” Orlando Sentinel.

22. “July Perry strung from limb of tree and shot to death,” Orlando Evening Star, November 3, 1920, 1. 

23. “July Perry,” Orlando Evening Star. 

24. “Fiery battle smolders in city’s past,” Orlando Sentinel, September 7, 1986, 12. 

25. “Florida’s State Academic Standards – Social Studies, 2023,” Florida Department of Education, accessed May 8, 2024, https://www.fldoe.org/core/fileparse.php/20653/urlt/6-4.pdf; Also, see “Commissioner of Education’s African American History Task Force 1920 Ocoee Election Day Riots (Massacre) Recommendations Report,” Florida Department of Education, accessed May 8, 2024, https://www.fldoe.org/core/fileparse.php/18736/urlt/AAHTF-1920-Ocoee-Election-Day-Riots-Massacre-Recommendations-Report.pdf

26. “Yesterday, This Was Home,” Orange County Regional History Center.

27. “Gravestone ’part of the healing process,” Orlando Sentinel, October 28, 2002, B1.

28. “Ceremony marks sacrifice of Perry, black voter rights," Orlando Sentinel, November 6, 2018, B1.

29. Cordeiro, Monivette, “Central Florida Remembers 1920 Election Day Lynching of July Perry with Voting Stickers,” Orlando Weekly, November 8, 2018, accessed September 17, 2023, https://www.orlandoweekly.com/news/central-florida-remembers-1920-election-day-lynching-of-july-perry-with-voting-stickers-20762408