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Our Family’s Heritage: The 1920 Ocoee Voting Day Massacre

Hattie Hamiter Merritt Lamb was born in Comer, Alabama, the third child to Jack Hamiter, a farmer, and Annie Hamiter, a

nurse. Her sister was Rosa, and her brother was Lafayette. My great-grandparents were survivors of the 1920 Ocoee Massacre. This
horrific event was caused because the African-Americans were attempting to participate in Election Day on November 2, 1920, at the

urging of July Perry and Mose Norman. The KKK threatened the community by burning many homes, a church, a school, and many

other buildings along with murdering many people. July Perry was eventually lynched because he was the Brave Leader influencing
and encouraging the Black community to vote. Someone said it was because of Black Dollar Power in Ocoee. Properties were stolen,

and many families escaped to neighboring towns like Winter Garden, Florida, and Sanford, Florida, where my great-grandparents

decided to reside. They lost their orange grove and two-story home according to my cousins Jacqueline Butler Felder and Camilla
Wilson Barnes (on the Matilda Smith side of the family). My lineage (the Merritts) is through marriage. The unfortunate devastation

of Ocoee’s African-American communities is documented in Ocoee: Legacy of the Election Day Massacre.

As a descendant of the Ocoee Massacre, when I think of that devastation from that time and the fear my race faced in trying to simply

cast their votes in an election—in a nation where they had the legal right to do so—it’s extremely hard to fathom. What is even more
chilling and disheartening is that – in 2020 – that same fear of black power and the black vote, nearly 100 years later, is still prevalent.

My father was a bona fide, certified huntsman. Every fall was the designated season for his partners to plan a hunting trip that would
take place around Thanksgiving. He and his buddies would rent a lodge in Georgia to hunt for venison and other edible wild animals.

Daddy brought his hunting treasures home. They were parcels of meat that my mother wouldn’t allow him to store in our refrigerator.
She definitely didn’t want me to eat any of his wild catch. My father would tell my mother, “Let the girl eat those wild animal menus.

It will make her pretty and fat.” I don’t know about pretty, but it certainly made me fat!

Grandmother Hattie, my father’s mother, and I would plan a visit to her home for dinner. She only lived in Florida for six months
out of the year and in Ithaca, New York, the rest of the time. I loved it when she came to town. She lived on the west side of Sanford,