OCOEE!

<p><em>Ocoee!</em> is a powerful coming-of-age story that bears witness to an event that occurred in a small town near Orlando Florida during the 1920 Presidential election. In response to African Americans attempting to exercise their right to vote a mob of white supremacists and Ku Klux Klan members went on a rampage through a black neighborhood killing a number of people and burning many homes. The survivors nearly 500 of them fled never to return. For more than 60 years Ocoee became a white-only town.</p><p>This fictionalized account chronicles the massacre and the events surrounding it as seen through the eyes of a spirited young white girl Georgia Kambel. Her diary brings to life the community and the many people involved. Her great granddaughter Cassie who is writing a thesis about what happened supplements the entries with her own research connecting the distant past to our times.  </p><p>What emerges is a poignant tale filled with love laughter anger violence heartbreak tears and painful realizations about the deep divide of racial relations in the rural South nearly a century ago. But <em>Ocoee!</em> doesn’t merely document a distressing chapter of American history. Ultimately it is about the power of forgiveness understanding and healing that points toward the possibility of a better future for all of us today.</p>