” … African American residents of Ocoee, Florida, went out to cast their ballots in the presidential election …. [I]n the run-up to the 1920 election, Black people in Ocoee were registering to vote in droves.
“State and local officials — along with the Ku Klux Klan — understood that white supremacy was in trouble,” a historian wrote years later. “They responded mercilessly.”
To keep them from voting, a white mob “killed dozens of African Americans, set fire to their houses and drove them out of the community.” It was, the historian wrote, “the single bloodiest day in modern American political history.”
Read story here, here, and here.
Other African-American voting stories:
Republicans in Michigan sued for the “right” to brandish guns in polling places (read story here).
A 99-year-old Mississippi black man remembers when he couldn’t vote (read story here).
Photo: Today Ocoee, Florida, is a rapidly growing city
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