The Equal Justice Initiative (Website) recently released a report on the history of lynching the United States, which you can read HERE. Research in the report identified that there were more than 4,000 cases of African Americans being lynched in the South between the end of Reconstruction and World War II.
Of those instances, 33 of those murders took place in Orange County, Florida; more than any other county in Florida and the sixth largest number in the twelve Southern states.
The Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) is requesting the placement of a historical marker in the Heritage Square, located in Downtown Orlando by the Orange County Regional History Center, to acknowledge those murders but also to specifically memorialize the lynching of July Perry and the Ocoee Massacre of 1920.
During the Ocoee Massacre, Perry was arrested and taken to the Orange County Courthouse, where the Heritage Square is now located. Perry was dragged out of the Orange County Jail by an angry mob and lynched.
EJI has submitted a Monuments and Memorials application which has been approved by various City Departments and is recommended for approval for the City Council meeting on Monday, April 8.
EJI has placed a number of lynching memorials across the South, as seen in the above video, which was filmed in Abbeville, South Carolina.
