Ocoee, Florida, 1920: Part 3

“Growing up, the only thing I knew about Ocoee, was that we didn’t go there. Nobody said why, and I just assumed growing up that it was just a town for white people. “

Francine Boykin, 2020 news report on Ocoee

For over twenty-five years, beginning in 1994, the white residents of Ocoee remembered the history and founding of their town with honor and pride each fall. In July of 2020, shortly after the Florida governor announced that the history of what happened in Ocoee in 1920 would be taught in every public school in the state, some started to push back on the whitewashed history. IN 2020, the Founder’s Day festival became the Ocoee Fall Music Festival. The festival organizers did not disguise their reasons for the change.