A WHITE racist shot dead three black people in Florida on Saturday before killing himself.

The gunman, who has yet to be identified but was described by authorities as a masked white man in his twenties, used a gun painted with a swastika to carry out the shooting inside a Dollar General store in a predominately African-American district of Jacksonville. He had a history of posting racist content on social media.

Jacksonville Sheriff TK Waters told a news conference that the attack, which left two men and one woman dead, was definitely “racially motivated.”

The gunman “hated black people,” said Mr Waters after reviewing the man’s writings, which were sent to federal law enforcement officials and at least one media outlet shortly before the attack. 

The shooting happened the day before the 63rd anniversary of one of Jacksonville’s most notorious racist incidents, known as Axe Handle Saturday.

A group of black protesters were conducting a peaceful sit-in at a city park on August 27 1960 in protest at the Jim Crow laws that kept them out of white-owned shops and restaurants when they were attacked by 200 Ku Klux Klan members with bats and axe handles as police stood by.

Only when members of a black street gang arrived to fight the Klansmen did the police intervene. Even then, only black people were arrested.