ReImagining the Ocoee Showcase: A Plan for Visual Representation of the Imagined but Undocumented

Elizabeth Hallman School of Visual Art and Design, The University of Central Florida

Abstract: The Ocoee Showcase, a mobile historic tour which highlights a racial incident in Ocoee, Florida, is examined. The author discusses various methods of producing visual images without photographs. The author believes that the project had conflicting goals and that putting the historical information in a website designed for sedentary viewing might allow the user to gain a more accurate view of the incident.

1 INTRODUCTION mob entered, seized Perry, and took him to a location near the Orlando Country In Fall 2011, the Interactive Story class at Club (some accounts mention Country The University of Central Florida created an Club Drive and others list interactive project that would combine two Westmoreland) and lynched him. The goals: “getting people to walk more” and bringing diverse groups together in a same night, a white mob burned down community. The inchoate project coalesced one of the two Black neighborhoods, the into a walking tour of Ocoee, with the focus “Methodist Quarters”, which was on the on an incident in 1920 that resulted in north side of town. (The Baptist Quarters, numerous deaths and the overnight eviction the other Black neighborhood was on the of African Americans from the town. southern end of town.) In addition to all homes in the Methodist Quarters, two The events of the 1920 Ocoee Riot (also churches and a masonic lodge were known as the Ocoee Massacre) can be torched. Black residents who had their summarized briefly as follows: On homes burned fled during the night. November 2, 1920, a landowning Within days, the entire African African American named Mose Norman American population – about 500 people tried to vote and was turned away. After – left Ocoee for Apopka, Tampa, or speaking with Judge John Cheney, in other towns or cities. Ocoee was known Orlando, Norman returned to the polls, as a “sundown town,” and no Black and following an altercation, he was person would stay there after dark. Not never seen again. Burly Jones, the until the 1970s did Ocoee have any African American servant of Captain Black residents. Sims, told whites that July Perry, another prominent land owning African 2 THE OCOEE SHOWCASE American, had several Negroes at his house. A group of white men led by Sam Because the Ocoee Showcase was to be a Salisbury visited Perry, and a shoot out walking tour, a decision was made to limit ensued on Perry’s property. Perry shot the tour to a few blocks close to the central historic district. Unfortunately, many of the and killed two of them. A mob returned, key events in the story took place outside of captured Perry, and took him to the jail the walking space. As a result, many of the in Orlando. While he was in jail, a white nodes in the Ocoee Showcase contain filler material, such as information about when articles, theses, and oral histories but very the Bank of Ocoee closed. Each node in few pictures of the African American the Ocoee Showcase can be accessed by neighborhoods. Additionally, exact locations tapping (or clicking if on a desktop) a of the polls, the two churches, and the numerical marker on a Google map. The Masonic temple could not be pinpointed. In user can also access nodes from a the author’s opinion, establishing actual locations of events is fundamental to a Marker List. geo-located walking tour.

Information is organized as follows: 1) Introduction; 2) Jazz in the 1920s; 3) 3 VISUAL REPRESENTATIONS Political Climate of 1920; 4) The Ocoee Riot; 5) Withers Maguire House; 6) Methodist Quarters Church Burning; 7) Lack of visual resources was considered to Methodist Quarters; 8) Strange Fruit be unimportant to the project since users (song); 9) Florida Midland Rail Report; would access the showcase on cell phones, 10) The Polls; 11) White Section of which have small screens. In the author’s Town; 12) Ocoee Youth of 1920; 13) opinion, however, visual reconstructions – Bank of Ocoee; 14) Local Dining; 15) 3D or 2D – would have enhanced the project. Sims House; 16) Ocoee Women’s Club; The website Planning Kit for a Quality Site 17) Racism; 18) A White View of for Small and Medium Sized Museums Segregation; and 19) Richard Franks states, "a virtual reconstruction may Revisits. Nodes 5, 6, 10, 11, 12, 16, 18, sometimes offer a more powerful aid than and 19 are brief fictional narratives either written text or traditional graphic and written and read by Ocoee High School students. The Florida Midland Rail audio-visual media." Three levels of Report and Bank of Ocoee provide reconstruction include 1) reconstructions snippets of information about landmarks, based on actual documentation 2) and by clicking 2 (Jazz in the 1920s) and reconstructions based on clues, and 3) 8 (Strange Fruit), the user hears songs uncertain reconstructions which elaborate on with lyrics about racism and lynching. documents (Museo & Web Planning Kit). If virtual reconstructions of nonextant A survey conducted during a conference of buildings had been created for the Ocoee digital content creators revealed that 75% of Showcase, they would have been attendees believed that emotional resonance reconstructions based on documents such as was more important to content than quantity original property deeds. of information or clarity. By this standard, the fictional audio accounts created for the In Rome Reborn, an ambitious project Ocoee Showcase could be considered created by the Virtual World Heritage effective, and the limited depth of the Laboratory at The University of Virginia, historical information would not be a ancient Rome is recreated in 3D and problem. Unfortunately, if the user had wished to find a factual and complete embedded in Google Earth. This project narrative of the Ocoee Riot/Massacre, he or divided buildings into two categories. Class she might learn more by conducting a quick I included buildings and landmarks with Google search. well documented location and appearance. Although the existence of Class II buildings While researching the Ocoee Riot/Massacre, the researchers discovered newspaper was documented, the exact location and appearance was unknown (Wells, Frischer, or still) would be illuminating, it would be Ross & Deller). Most of the sites mentioned impractical, especially for a tour designed in the Ocoee Showcase would fit this for smart phones, because of loading time. classification. Pictures from the Rome Reborn site are not shown, due to copyright, The House of Olbrich utilizes an iPhone but they may be seen online at Augmented Reality app to show how an Art http://www.romereborn.virginia.edu. Nouveau building in Darmstadt, Germany looked before renovations (Keil, Zollner, Google Sketch-Up is a free, open source Becker, Weintrapper, Engelke, & Wuest, program that offers models of buildings 2011). Although the technical aspects of this created by users.. A one-minute searches for app are beyond the scope of this paper, The “shack”, “cracker house”, and “vernacular” House of Olbrich project does show that a produced 3D models, that with minimal reconstructed visual image can be used in a effort, could be used to create an image of mobile historical tour. The creators of The farmworkers’ homes in the Methodist House of Olbrich app decided to style the Quarters. AR images with the look of architectural drawings rather than to try to create a semi-realistic image (Keil, et al).

Figure 1. “Shack” is an example of user created and shared 3D model available on Google SketchUp 8.0. Figure 3. The House of Olbrich app

Creators of some projects forego reconstruction of non-extant subject matter. In his article, "Territory as Interface: Design for Mobile Experiences," Michael Longford describes an alternative to VR and AR. Urban Archeology: Sampling the Park, created by Mobile Digital Commons Network relies only on embedded Figure 2. “Florida Scene” by Darryl Smith information. Longford says, "Rather than (Google SketchUp 8.0) constructing virtual worlds and experiences, we can now embed information into ambient social interactions that are played out in the physical world. Each of these projects treats Although a true 3D representation (animated “territory as interface” creating networked environments that seek to connect the arrow to Apopka; and 8) arrow to Tampa, to physical to the virtual in ways the augment which July Perry’s wife Estella fled. Other everyday experiences rather than replacing possible markers would include The Ocoee them with artificial virtual worlds..." Reconciliation Team (in Ocoee) and the (Longford, 2007). In the "Sampling the Democracy Forum (in Apopka). Information Park" installation, media files were attached markers on these two organizations would to GPS coordinates. The user clicks on or provide information on their differing views touches a "hot spot" and an audio clip, regarding the Riot / Massacre. accompanied by still images, plays.

Figure 4. Sampling the Park installation

The Ocoee Showcase resembles the "embedded information" model. Whereas it did not succeed in providing visual images of 1920 Ocoee, it did encourage collaboration from various contributors.

4 PROPOSED SOLUTION The author proposes using the historical research gathered for the Ocoee Showcase, along with the software created by UCF Figure 5. Partial schematic of proposed student Pedro Silva to create a separate map with markers. website about The Ocoee Riot (aka The Ocoee Massacre). By not confining the story 5 CONCLUSION to an area that could be walked, one could provide a more thorough presentation of the When in the planning stages of any project, events of November 2-3, 1920. a group should see if its goals are in conflict with each other. The Ocoee Showcase The map would include Orlando and would attempted to motivate people to walk and at include the following markers: 1) Polls the same time educate them about a (downtown historic Ocoee; 2) Orange controversial and painful chapter in local County Courthouse 3) July Perry’s home; 4) history. Limiting geolocated markers to the the jail (possibly in the Orange County walkable, picturesque portion of town Courthouse); 5) the lynching site (near excluded key locations in the story. Perhaps Orlando Country Club); 6) the Methodist a better goal would have been to create a Quarter (south of Fullers Cross Road); 7) walking tour that focused on the actual history of the sites within the walkable area. A separate website about the Riot / Mason, M. (2011). User Experience and Massacre could hold more information and Mobile System for Museums: the images, and the user – from wherever he or contribution of Information she viewed the site – could gain more Architecture. Retrieved from accurate information about the Ocoee Riot / http://www.iasummit.it/2011/wp-cont Massacre. ent/uploads/2011/05/mason_def.pdf

REFERENCES Museo&Web Planning Kit for a Quality Site for Small and Medium Sized Keil, J., Zollner, M., Becker, M., Museums. Retrieved from Weintapper, F., Engelke, T., Wuest, H. http://www.minervaeurope.org/structu (2011). The House of Olbrich: An re/workinggroups/userneeds/prototipo Augmented Reality Tour through /protomuseo/patrimonio/virtuale_e.ht Architectural History. Mixed and ml Augmented Reality – Arts, Media and Humanities (ISMAR-AMH), 2011 Wells, A., Frisher, B. Ross, D., & Deller, IEEE International Symposium On, C. Rome Reborn in Google Earth. pp. 15-18. doi: Retrieved from 10.1109/ISMAR-AMH.2011.6093651 http://www.romereborn.virginia.edu/r ome_reborn_2_documents/papers/Wel Longford, M. (2007). Territory as ls2_Frischer_Rome_Reborn.pdf Interface Design for Mobile Experiences. WI: Journal of Mobile Media. (1) Retrieved from http://wi.hexagon.ca/?p=16