OCOEE, Fla. – Tuesday night, the City of Ocoee signed a proclamation 98 years in the making, acknowledging the African-Americans who lost their lives and homes in the Election Day Riots of 1920.
Ocoee resident William Maxwell, 80, said it was some of Ocoee's darkest days in history, after a man named Moses Norman tired to vote in the Nov. 2, 1920, presidential election.
"He was refused on some type of thing that he had not paid his poll taxes and violence ensued," Maxwell said.
It led to days of riots and to the beating and lynching death of Julius "July" Perry, a prominent African-American in Ocoee, now buried in Orlando's Greenwood Cemetery.
"They proceeded to burn homes of the black residents that lived there. The story is, as individuals attempted to escape on foot, however means they could, they were shot," Maxwell said.
Maxwell told this story standing at a memorial signifying the event on Basking Ridge Court in Ocoee. The words "Hallowed Ground" are written on the gravestone.
"It was an atrocity, one death would have been too many," Maxwell said.
For the last decade, Maxwell has worked with former Ocoee Mayor Lester Dabbs and now current Mayor Rusty Johnson to get the proclamation. A proclamation that was read and signed at the city council meeting Tuesday night.
"The historical record clearly shows that African-American residents of West Orange County in and around what later became the City of Ocoee were grievously denied their civil rights, their properties, and their very lives in a series of unlawful acts perpetrated by a white mob and governmental officials on November 2, 1920, and the following weeks simply because they tried to vote," the proclamation read.
"The City believes that remembering and honoring those individuals who were killed, injured, driven from their homes, and had their property taken from them is a core requirement for ensuring that such acts do not occur again."
At the end, the city approved putting up a historical marker in a public space that will describe the tragic events of November 1920. For Maxwell, it makes him proud.
"Opening their mouths, confessing with their hearts that this act did occur, equals some form of redemption. It's not a lot but every river starts as a trickle," Maxwell said.