Thursday, October 29, 2020, 6:30 p.m.
It has been 100 years since America’s largest instance of voting-day violence – the Ocoee Massacre. Join a panel of experts as we discuss both the event and the dark legacies it has left in Central Florida through today. Speakers include Florida state Sen. Randolph Bracy, state Rep. Geraldine Thompson, Dr. Paul Ortiz of the University of Florida’s history faculty, and community historian Francina Boykin. This panel discussion is moderated by the History Center’s chief curator, Pam Schwartz, and coincides with the special exhibition Yesterday, This Was Home: The Ocoee Massacre of 1920.
Panelists include:
Francina Boykin
Francina Boykin is a founding member of Democracy Forum’s Ocoee Research Project, which in the late 1990s made significant research discoveries about the Ocoee Massacre of 1920, including the location of lynching victim July Perry’s grave. Currently president of the Apopka Historical Society, she has been featured in film documentaries and numerous panels about the Ocoee Massacre, race relations, and civil rights. Honored with the Marvin C. Zanders Humanitarian Award in 2006, she is the 2020 recipient of the Historical Society of Central Florida’s Donald A. Cheney Award for her long-standing dedication to Central Florida history and to community service.
State Sen. Randolph Bracy
State Sen. Randolph Bracy III of Ocoee has represented District 11 in the Florida Senate since 2016. He also served in the Florida House from 2012 to 2016, representing District 45. Sen. Bracy sponsored the 2020 Florida law designed to ensure that the Ocoee Massacre of 1920 was included in Florida school history curriculums, as well as in state museum exhibits and programming. He holds degrees from the College of William and Mary in Virginia and the University of Central Florida.
Paul Ortiz, Ph.D.
Paul Ortiz is director of the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program and professor of history at the University of Florida in Gainesville. His 2018 book, An African American and Latinx History of the United States, has been called one of “Ten Books About Race to Read Instead of Asking a Person of Color to Explain Things to You.” He’s also the author of Emancipation Betrayed: The Hidden History of Black Organizing and White Violence in Florida from Reconstruction to the Bloody Election of 1920, winner of the Florida Historical Society’s Harry and Harriette T. Moore Award.
State Rep. Geraldine F. Thompson
State Rep. Geraldine F. Thompson was elected in 2018 as the first woman and first person of color to represent Florida House District 44. She previously served in the Florida House (2006-2012) and in the Florida Senate (2012-2016), and for 24 years as administrator at Valencia College, where she established the College Reach Out Program, which enabled thousands of students to fulfill their dream of going to college. She is also a respected community historian, author of Black America: Orlando, Florida, and founder of the Wells’Built Museum of African American History and Culture in Orlando.
Programming supported by
