From the Pages of Orlando Weekly
The Legacy of Black Press in the Region
• 95 years ago, Ocoee was the site of a massacre. “RACE TROUBLE AT OCOEE CLAIMS 2 WHITE VICTIMS,” reads part of a headline from the Orlando Morning Sentinel’s Nov. 3, 1920 edition. Newspapers reported that a black man named Mose Norman became enraged when he was told he couldn’t vote because he didn’t pay his poll tax. Media accounts said he stormed the polling place with a group of angry black men, starting a massive race riot. 60 people, most of them black, were killed. Norman, meanwhile, allegedly hid in the home of a friend, who was later lynched in downtown Orlando for helping him. It wasn’t until 20 years later, when Zora Neale Hurston wrote her account of the …
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