Rosewood massacre: Difference between revisions

{{shortShort description|1923 massacre of African Americans in Florida, US}}

| title = Rosewood massacre

| partof = [[mass racial violence in the United States]] and the [[nadir of American race relations]]

| image = Rosewood Florida rc12408.jpg

| alt = =A photograph of ashes from a burned building with several people standing nearby and trees in the distance

| caption = The remains of Sarah Carrier's house, where two Blackblack and two white people were killed in [[Rosewood, Florida]] in January 1923

| map = {{Location map | Florida#USA

| map_size =

| map_alt =

| location =

| target = [[BlackAfrican peopleAmericans]]

| coordinates = {{coord|29|14|0|N|82|56|0| W|type:event_region:US-FL|display=title,inline}}

| date = January 1–7, 1923

The '''Rosewood massacre''' was a racially motivated [[massacre]] of Blackblack people and the destruction of a Blackblack town that took place during the first week of January 1923 in rural [[Levy County, Florida]], United States. At least six Black people and two whiteblack people were killed, but eyewitness accounts suggested a higher death toll of 27 to 150. In addition, two white people were killed in self-defense by one of the victims. The town of [[Rosewood, Florida|Rosewood]] was destroyed in what contemporary news reports characterized as a [[Mass racial violence in the United States|race riot]]. Florida had an especially high number of [[lynching]]s of Blackblack men in the years before the massacre,<ref name="Downs2015">{{cite news|author1=Ray Downs|title=Florida Lynched More Black People Per Capita Than Any Other State, According to Report|url=http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/news/florida-lynched-more-black-people-per-capita-than-any-other-state-according-to-report-6470940|access-date=25 April 2018|work=New Times Broward-Palm Beach|date=11 February 2015|quote=Between 1877 and 1950, the report, Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror, counts 3,959 examples of "racial terror lynchings," which EJI describes as violent, public acts of torture that were tolerated by public officials and designed to intimidate Blackblack victims. The staggering tally is 700 more than previously reported and is based on research of court records, newspaper accounts, local historians, and family descendants.|archive-date=26 April 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180426013427/http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/news/florida-lynched-more-black-people-per-capita-than-any-other-state-according-to-report-6470940|url-status=live}}</ref> including athe well-publicized[[lynching incidentof inCharles DecemberStrong]] 1922.{{Citationand needed|date=Septemberthe 2022}}[[Perry massacre]] in 1922.

Before the massacre, the town of Rosewood had been a quiet, primarily Blackblack, self-sufficient [[whistle stop]] on the [[Seaboard Air Line Railway]]. Trouble began when white men from several nearby towns lynched a Blackblack Rosewood resident because of accusations that a white woman in nearby [[Sumner, Florida|Sumner]] had been assaulted by a Blackblack drifter. A mob of several hundred whites combed the countryside hunting for Blackblack people and burned almost every structure in Rosewood. For several days, survivors from the town hid in nearby swamps until they were evacuated to larger towns by train and car. No arrests were made for what happened in Rosewood. The town was abandoned by its former Blackblack and white residents; none of them ever moved back and the town ceased to exist.

Although the rioting was widely reported around the United States at the time, few official records documented the event. The survivors, their descendants, and the perpetrators all remained silent about Rosewood for decades. Sixty years after the rioting, the story of Rosewood was revived by major media outlets when several journalists covered it in the early 1980s. The survivors and their descendants all organized in an attempt to sue the state for failing to protect Rosewood's Blackblack community. In 1993, the Florida Legislature commissioned a report on the incident. As a result of the findings, Florida compensated the survivors and their descendants for the damages which they had incurred because of racial violence. The incident was the subject of [[Rosewood (film)|a 1997 feature film]] which was directed by [[John Singleton]]. In 2004, the state designated the site of Rosewood as a [[Florida Heritage Landmark]].

Officially, the recorded death toll during the first week of January 1923 was eight (six Black peopleblacks and two white peoplewhites). Some survivors' stories claim that up to 27 Blackblack residents were killed, and they also assert that newspapers did not report the total number of white deaths. Minnie Lee Langley, who was in the Carrier house when it was besieged, recalls that she stepped over many white bodies on the porch when she left the house.<ref name="historian"/> A newspaper article which was published in 1984 stated that estimates of up to 150 victims maymight have been exaggerations.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.tampabay.com/data/2018/06/06/from-the-archives-the-original-story-of-the-rosewood-massacre/|title=From the archives: the original story of the Rosewood Massacre|last=Moore|first=Gary|date=July 25, 1982|work=The St. Petersburg Times Floridian|access-date=February 16, 2019|archive-date=February 15, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190215071227/http://www.tampabay.com/data/2018/06/06/from-the-archives-the-original-story-of-the-rosewood-massacre/|url-status=live}}</ref> Several eyewitnesses claim to have seen a mass grave which was filled with the bodies of Blackblack people; one of them remembers seeing 26 bodies being covered with a plow which was brought from Cedar Key. However, by the time authorities investigated these claims, most of the witnesses were dead or too elderly and infirm to lead them to a site to confirm the stories.<ref name="D'Orso, pp. 324–325">D'Orso, pp. 324–325.</ref>

Initially, Rosewood had both Blackblack and white settlers. When most of the cedar trees in the area had been cut by 1890, the pencil mills closed, and many white residents moved to Sumner. By 1900, the population in Rosewood had become predominantly Blackblack. The village of Sumner was predominantly white, and relations between the two communities were relatively amicable.<ref name="colburn">Colburn, David R. (Fall 1997) "Rosewood and America in the Early Twentieth Century", ''The Florida Historical Quarterly'', '''76''' (2), pp. 175–192.</ref> Two Blackblack families in Rosewood named Goins and Carrier were the most powerful. The Goins family brought the turpentine industry to the area, and in the years preceding the attacks were the second largest landowners in Levy County.<ref>[[#Appendices|Jones, ''et al.'' "Appendices"]], p. 135.</ref> To avoid lawsuits from white competitors, the Goins brothers moved to [[Gainesville, Florida|Gainesville]], and the population of Rosewood decreased slightly.<ref name="historian"/> The Carriers were also a large family, primarily working at logging in the region. By the 1920s, almost everyone in the close-knit community was distantly related to each other.<ref>[[#Appendices|Jones, ''et al.'' "Appendices"]], p. 163.</ref> The population of Rosewood peaked in 1915 at 355 people. Florida had effectively [[Disenfranchisement after the Reconstruction Era|disenfranchised]] Blackblack voters since the start of the 20th century by high requirements for voter registration; both Sumner and Rosewood were part of a single voting precinct counted by the [[U.S. Census]]. In 1920, the combined population of both towns was 638 (344 Blackblack and 294 white).<ref>[[#Incident at Rosewood|Jones ''et al.'']], p. 20.</ref>

As was common in the late 19th century South, Florida had imposed legal [[racial segregation]] under [[Jim Crow laws]] requiring separate Blackblack and white public facilities and transportation.<ref>Pildes, Richard H. "Democracy, Anti-Democracy, and the Canon", ''Constitutional Commentary'' (2000), '''17''', p 12–13.</ref> Black and white residents created their own community centers: by 1920, the residents of Rosewood were mostly self-sufficient. They had three churches, a school, a large [[Freemasonry|Masonic Hall]], a turpentine mill, a [[sugarcane]] mill, a baseball team named the Rosewood Stars, and two general stores, one of which was white-owned. The village had about a dozen two-story wooden plank homes, other small two-room houses, and several small unoccupied plank farm and storage structures.<ref name="historian"/> Some families owned pianos, organs, and other symbols of middle-class prosperity. Survivors of Rosewood remember it as a happy place. In 1995, survivor Robie Mortin recalled at age 79 that when she was a child there, that "Rosewood was a town where everyone's house was painted. There were roses everywhere you walked. Lovely."<ref name="people">Jerome, Richard (January 16, 1995). "A Measure of Justice", ''People'', '''43''' (2), pp. 46–49</ref>

Racial violence at the time was common throughout the nation, manifested as individual incidents of extra-legal actions, or attacks on entire communities. [[Lynchings]] reached a peak around the start of the 20th century as southern states were disenfranchising Blackblack voters and imposing white supremacy; white supremacists used it as a means of social control throughout the South. In 1866 Florida, as did many Southern states, passed laws called [[Black Codes (United States)|Black Codes]] disenfranchising Blackblack citizens.<ref>Richardson, Joe (April 1969). "Florida Black Codes", ''The Florida Historical Quarterly'' '''47''' (4), pp. 366–380.</ref> Although these were quickly overturned, and Blackblack citizens enjoyed a brief period of improved social standing, by the late 19th century Blackblack political influence was virtually nil. The white Democratic-dominated legislature passed a [[Poll tax (United States)|poll tax]] in 1885, which largely served to disenfranchise all poor voters. Losing political power, Blackblack voters suffered a deterioration of their legal and political rights in the years following.<ref>Gannon, p. 275–276.</ref> Without the right to vote, they were excluded as jurors and could not run for office, effectively excluding them from the political process. The United States as a whole was experiencing rapid social changes: an influx of European immigrants, industrialization and the growth of cities, and political experimentation in [[Northern United States|the North]]. In [[Southern United States|the South]], Blackblack Americans grew increasingly dissatisfied with their lack of economic opportunity and status as second-class citizens.<ref>Tebeau, pp. 243–244.</ref>

[[File:Turpentine workers in Florida.jpg|thumb|left|alt=A black and white photograph of a Blackblack youth and two Blackblack men harvesting sap from pine trees in the woods|Black [[turpentine]] workers were encouraged to stay in Florida only after they became scarce.]]

Elected officials in Florida represented the voting white majority. Governor [[Napoleon Bonaparte Broward]] (1905–1909) suggested finding a location out of state for Blackblack people to live separately. Tens of thousands of people moved to the North during and after [[World War I]] in the [[Great Migration (African American)|Great Migration]], unsettling labor markets and introducing more rapid changes into cities. They were recruited by many expanding northern industries, such as the [[Pennsylvania Railroad]], the steel industry, and meatpacking. Florida governors [[Park Trammell]] (1913–1917) and [[Sidney Catts]] (1917–1921) generally ignored the emigration of Black peopleblacks to the North and its causes. While Trammell was state [[attorney general]], none of the 29 lynchings committed during his term were prosecuted, nor were any of the 21 that occurred while he was governor. Catts ran on a platform of [[white supremacy]] and [[anti-Catholic sentiment]]; he openly criticized the [[National Association for the Advancement of Colored People]] (NAACP) when they complained he did nothing to investigate two lynchings in Florida. Catts changed his message when the turpentine and lumber industries claimed labor was scarce; he began to plead with Blackblack workers to stay in the state.<ref name="colburn"/> By 1940, 40,000 Blackblack people had left Florida to find employment, but also to escape the oppression of segregation, underfunded education and facilities, violence, and disenfranchisement.<ref name="historian">{{Cite journal|last=Dye|first=R. Thomas|date=Spring 1996|title=Rosewood, Florida: The Destruction of an African American Community|journal=The Historian|volume=58|issue=3|pages=605–622|doi=10.1111/j.1540-6563.1996.tb00967.x|jstor=24449436}}</ref>

When U.S. troop training began for World War I, many white Southerners were alarmed at the thought of arming Blackblack soldiers. A confrontation regarding the rights of Blackblack soldiers culminated in the [[Houston Riot (1917)|Houston Riot of 1917]]. German [[propaganda]] encouraged Blackblack soldiers to turn against their "real" enemies: American white peoplewhites. Rumors reached the U.S. that French women had been sexually active with Blackblack American soldiers, which [[University of Florida]] historian David Colburn argues struck at the heart of Southern fears about power and [[miscegenation]].<ref name="colburn"/> Colburn connects growing concerns of sexual intimacy between the races to what occurred in Rosewood: "Southern culture had been constructed around a set of mores and values which places white women at its center and in which the purity of their conduct and their manners represented the refinement of that culture. An attack on women not only represented a violation of the South's foremost taboo, but it also threatened to dismantle the very nature of southern society."<ref name="colburn"/> The transgression of [[miscegenation|sexual taboos]] subsequently combined with the arming of Blackblack citizens to raise fears among white peoplewhites of an impending race war in the South.

The influx of Blackblack people into urban centers in the Northeast and Midwest increased racial tensions in those cities. Between 1917 and 1923, racial disturbances erupted in numerous cities throughout the U.S., motivated by economic competition between different racial groups for industrial jobs. One of the first and most violent instances was a [[East St. Louis Riot|riot in East St. Louis]], sparked in 1917. In the [[Red Summer of 1919]], racially motivated mob violence erupted in 23&nbsp;cities—including [[Chicago Race Riot of 1919|Chicago]], [[Omaha Race Riot of 1919|Omaha]], and [[Washington, D.C.]]—caused by competition for jobs and housing by returning World War I veterans of both races, and the arrival of waves of new European immigrants.<ref>D'Orso, pp. 51–56.</ref> Further unrest occurred in [[Tulsa race riot|Tulsa in 1921]], when white peoplewhites attacked the Blackblack Greenwood community. David Colburn distinguishes two types of violence against Blackblack people up to 1923: Northern violence was generally spontaneous mob action against entire communities<!--were its roots strictly economic, as suggested here? should say so-->. Southern violence, on the otherin handcontrast, took the form of individual incidents of lynchings and other extrajudicial actions. The Rosewood massacre, according to Colburn, resembled violence more commonly perpetrated in the North in those years.<ref name="colburn"/>

Despite Governor Catts' change of attitude, white mob action frequently occurred in towns throughout north and central Florida and went unchecked by local law enforcement. Extrajudicial violence against Blackblack residents was so common that it seldom was covered by newspapers.<ref name="historian"/> In 1920, white peoplewhites removed four Blackblack men from jail, who were suspects accused of raping a white woman in [[Macclenny, Florida|Macclenny]], and lynched them. In [[Ocoee, Florida|Ocoee]] the same year, two Blackblack citizens armed themselves to go to the polls during an election. A confrontation ensued and two white election officials were shot, after which a white mob destroyed Ocoee's Blackblack community, causing as many as 30 deaths, and destroying 25 homes, two churches, and a Masonic Lodge.<ref>Jones and McCarthy, pp. 81–82.</ref> Just weeks before the Rosewood massacre, the [[Perry Race Riot]] occurred on December 14 and 15 December, 1922, in which white peoplewhites burned Charles Wright at the stake and attacked the Blackblack community of [[Perry, Florida]] after a white schoolteacher was murdered.<ref name="Henry2007">{{cite book|last=Henry|first=Charles P.|title=Long overdue: the politics of racial reparations|url=https://archive.org/details/longoverduepolit00henr|url-access=registration|year=2007|publisher=NYU Press|isbn=978-0-8147-3692-0|pages=[https://archive.org/details/longoverduepolit00henr/page/70 70]–71}}</ref> On the day following Wright's lynching, white peoplewhites shot and hanged two more Blackblack men in Perry; next they burned the town's Blackblack school, [[Masonic lodge]], church, amusement hall, and several families' homes.<ref name="Henry2007" /><ref name="henry">{{Cite book | publisher = Yale University Press | isbn = 978-0-300-09541-8 |editor1= C. Michel Henry | last = Henry | first = C. Michael | title = Race, Poverty, and Domestic Policy | chapter = Introduction | location = New Haven | series = Yale ISPS series | year = 2004 | chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=_DmN-Zq-WPIC&pg=PA31 | url = https://archive.org/details/racepovertydomes00henr }}</ref>

The Rosewood massacre occurred after a white woman in Sumner claimed she had been assaulted by a Blackblack man. Frances "Fannie" Taylor was 22 years old in 1923 and married to James, a 30-year-old [[millwright]] employed by Cummer & Sons in Sumner. They lived there with their two young children. James' job required him to leave each day during the darkness of early morning. Neighbors remembered Fannie Taylor as "very peculiar": she was meticulously clean, scrubbing her cedar floors with bleach so that they shone white. Other women attested that Taylor was aloof; no one knew her very well.<ref name="moore"/>

On January 1, 1923, the Taylors' neighbor reported that she heard a scream while it was still dark, grabbed her revolver and ran next door to find Fannie bruised and beaten, with scuff marks across the white floor. Taylor was screaming that someone needed to get her baby. She said a Blackblack man was in her house; he had come through the back door and assaulted her. The neighbor found the baby, but no one else.<ref name="moore"/> Taylor's initial report stated her assailant beat her about the face but did not [[rape]] her. Rumors circulated—widely believed by white peoplewhites in Sumner—that she was both raped and robbed.<ref>[[#Incident at Rosewood|Jones ''et al.'']], pp. 24–25.</ref><ref group=note>The story was disputed for years: historian Thomas Dye interviewed a white man in Sumner in 1993 who asserted, "that nigger raped her!" (Thomas Dye in ''The Historian'', 1996). Ernest Parham, who married W. H. Pillsbury's daughter three years after Pillsbury's death in 1926, was skeptical that Taylor was raped, based on his personal knowledge of James Taylor: "They came from a good Cedar Key family. At least ''he'' did. Where she came from, I don't know. But some of James Taylor's sisters were in my class in school. I knew that family, and they were good people." (D'Orso, p. 198.)</ref> The charge of rape of a white woman by a Blackblack man was inflammatory in the South: the day before, the Klan had held a parade and rally of over 100 hooded Klansmen {{Convert|50|mi|km}} away in [[Gainesville, Florida|Gainesville]] under a [[burning cross]] and a banner reading, "First and Always Protect Womanhood".<ref>"Ku Klux Klan in Gainesville Gave New Year Parade", ''[[The Florida Times-Union]]'', January 3, 1923.</ref>

The neighbor also reported the absence that day of Taylor's laundress, Sarah Carrier, whom the white women in Sumner called "Aunt Sarah". Philomena Goins, Carrier's granddaughter, told a different story about Fannie Taylor many years later. She joined her grandmother Carrier at Taylor's home as usual that morning. They watched a white man leave by the back door later in the morning before noon. She said Taylor did emerge from her home showing evidence of having been beaten, but it was well after morning.<ref name="moore"/> Carrier's grandson and Philomena's brother, Arnett Goins, sometimes went with them; he had seen the white man before. Carrier told others in the Blackblack community what she had seen that day; the Blackblack community of Rosewood believed that Fannie Taylor had a white lover, they got into a fight that day, and he beat her.<ref>[[#Incident at Rosewood|Jones ''et al.'']], p. 27.</ref> When the man left Taylor's house, he went to Rosewood.<ref name="moore"/>

Quickly, Levy County Sheriff Robert Elias Walker raised a [[Posse comitatus (common law)|posse]] and started an investigation. When they learned that Jesse Hunter, a Blackblack prisoner, had escaped from a [[chain gang]], they began a search to question him about Taylor's attack. Men arrived from Cedar Key, [[Otter Creek, Florida|Otter Creek]], [[Chiefland, Florida|Chiefland]], and [[Bronson, Florida|Bronson]] to help with the search. Adding confusion to the events recounted later, as many as 400 white men began to gather. Sheriff Walker [[Deputy sheriff|deputize]]d some of them, but was unable to initiate them all. Walker asked for dogs from a nearby convict camp, but one dog may have been used by a group of men acting without Walker's authority. Dogs led a group of about 100 to 150 men to the home of Aaron Carrier, Sarah's nephew. Aaron was taken outside, where his mother begged the men not to kill him. He was tied to a car and dragged to Sumner.<ref name="moore"/> Sheriff Walker put Carrier in protective custody at the county seat in Bronson to remove him from the men in the posse, many of whom were drinking and acting on their own authority. Worried that the group would quickly grow further out of control, Walker also urged Blackblack employees to stay at the turpentine mills for their own safety.<ref>[[#Incident at Rosewood|Jones ''et al.'']], pp. 28–29.</ref>

A group of white [[vigilantes]], who had become a mob by this time, seized Sam Carter, a local blacksmith and teamster who worked in a turpentine still. They tortured Carter into admitting that he had hidden the escaped chain gang prisoner. Carter led the group to the spot in the woods where he said he had taken Hunter, but the dogs were unable to pick up a scent. To the surprise of many witnesses, someone fatally shot Carter in the face.<ref group=note>Ernest Parham, a high school student in Cedar Key at the time, told David Colburn, "You could hear the gasps. I think most everyone was shocked. Mr. Pillsbury, he was standing there, and he said, 'Oh my God, now we'll never know who did it.' And then everybody dispersed, just turned and left. They was all really upset with this fella that did the killing. He was not very well thought of, not then, not for years thereafter, for that matter." (D'Orso, p. 194.)</ref> The group hung Carter's mutilated body from a tree as a symbol to other Blackblack men in the area.<ref name="historian"/> Some in the mob took souvenirs of his clothes.<ref name="moore"/> Survivors suggest that Taylor's lover fled to Rosewood because he knew he was in trouble and had gone to the home of Aaron Carrier, a fellow veteran and [[Freemasonry|Mason]]. Carrier and Carter, another Mason, covered the fugitive in the back of a wagon. Carter took him to a nearby river, let him out of the wagon, then returned home to be met by the mob, who was led by dogs following the fugitive's scent.<ref>[[#Incident at Rosewood|Jones ''et al.'']], pp. 32–33.</ref>

[[File:Rosewood Florida rc12409.jpg|thumb|200px|alt=A black and white photograph of a crude wooden structure that could be a small shed, animal house, or hunting cabin with smoke pouring from it and flames visible in the door|A cabin burns in Rosewood on January 4, 1923<ref group=note>The image was originally published in a news magazine in 1923, referring to the destruction of the town. Its veracity is somewhat disputed. Eva Jenkins, a Rosewood survivor, testified that she knew of no such structure in the town, that it was perhaps an outhouse. Rosewood houses were painted and most of them neat. However, the Florida Archives lists the image as representing the burning of a structure in Rosewood. (D'Orso, pp. 238–239) ([http://www.floridamemory.com/PhotographicCollection/ Florida Memory Archives] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080918030112/http://www.floridamemory.com/PhotographicCollection/ |date=2008-09-18 }} {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080918030112/http://www.floridamemory.com/PhotographicCollection/ |date=2008-09-18 }} Call No. RC12409.)</ref>]]

Sylvester Carrier was reported in the ''New York Times'' saying that the attack on Fannie Taylor was an "example of what negroes could do without interference".<ref>"Kill Six in Florida; Burn Negro Houses", ''The New York Times'' (January 6, 1923) p. 1.</ref> Whether or not he said this is debated, but a group of 20 to 30 white men, inflamed by the reported statement, went to the Carrier house. They believed that the Blackblack community in Rosewood was hiding escaped prisoner Jesse Hunter.<ref name="historian"/><ref group=note>Cedar Key resident Jason McElveen, who was in the posse that killed Sam Carter, remarked years later, "He said that they had 'em, and that if we thought we could, to come get 'em. That be just like throwing gasoline on fire&nbsp;... to tell a bunch of white people that." (Thomas Dye in ''The Historian'', 1996) Both Sylvester Carrier and Sam Carter had been previously arrested; Carrier for changing brands on cattle, and Carter for brandishing a shotgun at a sheriff's deputy. Carter had been released before being indicted, and Carrier, convinced that he was wrongly arrested and the charges were brought about by whites competing for grazing lands, was forced to serve on a chain gang for the summer of 1918, which he deeply resented. (Jones ''et al.'', "Incident at Rosewood", p. 30)(D'Orso, p. 104) Carrier's demeanor was vastly different from other black residents of Levy County. He was known to confront white people whom his younger sisters claimed had been rude to them, and made clear that they would have to deal with him in the future. ([[#Appendices|Jones, ''et al.'' "Appendices"]], pp. 215–216.) Arnett Doctor said that the story about Taylor being raped arose during the three-day span between the death of Sam Carter and the standoff at the Carrier house ([[#Appendices|Jones ''et al.'', "Appendices"]], p. 150.) Carrier's wife was of mixed ancestry and so light skinned she could [[Passing (racial identity)|pass for white]]. All these elements, according to Doctor, made Sylvester Carrier a target. ([[#Appendices|Jones, ''et al.'', "Appendices"]], p. 162.)</ref>

Several shots were exchanged: the house was riddled with bullets, but the whites did not overtakecapture it. The standoff lasted long into the next morning, when Sarah and Sylvester Carrier were found dead inside the house; several others were wounded, including a child who had been shot in the eye. Two white men, C. P. "Poly" Wilkerson and Henry Andrews, were killed; Wilkerson had kicked in the front door, and Andrews was behind him. At least four white men were wounded, one possibly fatally.<ref>[[#Incident at Rosewood|Jones ''et al.'']], pp. 40–41.</ref><ref group=note>Arnett Doctor, in his interview for the report given to the Florida Board of Regents, claimed that his mother received Christmas cards from Sylvester Carrier until 1964; he was said to have been smuggled out of Rosewood in a coffin and later lived in Texas and Louisiana. His survival was not otherwise documented. ([[#Appendices|Jones ''et al.'', "Appendices"]], pp. 165–166.)</ref> The remaining children in the Carrier house were spirited out the back door into the woods. They crossed dirt roads one at a time, then hid under brush until they had all gathered away from Rosewood.<ref>[[#Incident at Rosewood|Jones ''et al.'']], p. 43.</ref>

News of the armed standoff at the Carrier house attracted white men from all over the state to take part. Reports were carried in the ''[[St. Petersburg Independent]]'', the ''[[Florida Times-Union]]'', the ''[[Miami Herald]]'', and ''[[The Miami Metropolis]]'', in versions of competing facts and overstatement. The ''Miami Metropolis'' listed 20 Blackblack people and four white people dead and characterized the event as a "race war". National newspapers also put the incident on the front page. ''[[The Washington Post]]'' and ''[[St. Louis Post-Dispatch|St. Louis Dispatch]]'' described a band of "heavily armed Negroes" and a "negro desperado" as being involved.<ref name="dorso news">D'Orso, pp. 48–55.</ref> Most of the information came from discreet messages from Sheriff Walker, mob rumors, and other embellishments to part-time reporters who wired their stories to the [[Associated Press]]. Details about the armed standoff were particularly explosive. According to historian Thomas Dye, "The idea that blacks in Rosewood had taken up arms against the white race was unthinkable in the Deep South".<ref name="historian"/>

The white mob burned Blackblack churches in Rosewood. Philomena Goins' cousin, Lee Ruth Davis, heard the bells tolling in the church as the men were inside setting it on fire.<ref name="moore"/> The mob also destroyed the white church in Rosewood. Many Blackblack residents fled for safety into the nearby swamps, some clothed only in their pajamas. Wilson Hall was nine years old at the time; he later recounted his mother waking him to escape into the swamps early in the morning when it was still dark; the lights from approaching cars of white men could be seen for miles. The Hall family walked {{convert|15|mi|km}} through swampland to the town of [[Gulf Hammock, Florida|Gulf Hammock]]. The survivors recall that it was uncharacteristically cold for Florida, and people suffered when they spent several nights in raised wooded areas called [[hammock (ecology)|hammocks]] to evade the mob. Some took refuge with sympathetic white families.<ref name="historian"/> Sam Carter's 69-year-old widow hid for two days in the swamps, then was driven by a sympathetic white mail carrier, under bags of mail, to join her family in Chiefland.<ref name="people"/>

White men began surrounding houses, pouring [[kerosene]] on and lighting them, then shooting at those who emerged. Lexie Gordon, a light-skinned 50-year-old woman who was ill with [[typhoid fever]], had sent her children into the woods. She was killed by a shotgun blast to the face when she fled from hiding underneath her home, which had been set on fire by the mob. Fannie Taylor's brother-in-law claimed to be her killer.<ref name="historian"/> On January 5, more whites converged on the area, forming a mob of between 200 and 300 people. Some came from out of state. Mingo Williams, who was {{convert|20|mi|km}} away near Bronson, was collecting turpentine sap by the side of the road when a car full of white peoplewhites stopped and asked his name. As was custom among many residents of Levy County, both Blackblack and white, Williams used a nickname that was more prominent than his given name; when he gave his nickname of "Lord God", they shot him dead.<ref name="moore"/>

Sheriff Walker pleaded with news reporters covering the violence to send a message to the [[Alachua County]] Sheriff P. G. Ramsey to send assistance. Carloads of men came from Gainesville to assist Walker; many of them had probably participated in the Klan rally earlier in the week. W. H. Pillsbury tried desperately to keep black workers in the Sumner mill, and worked with his assistant, a man named Johnson, to dissuade the white workers from joining others using extra-legal violence. Armed guards sent by Sheriff Walker turned away Blackblack people who emerged from the swamps and tried to go home.<ref>[[#Incident at Rosewood|Jones ''et al.'']], p. 46.</ref> W. H. Pillsbury's wife secretly helped smuggle people out of the area. Several white men declined to join the mobs, including the town barber who also refused to lend his gun to anyone. He said he did not want his "hands wet with blood".<ref name="moore"/>

On January 6, white train conductors John and William Bryce managed the evacuation of some Blackblack residents to Gainesville. The brothers were independently wealthy Cedar Key residents who had an affinity for trains. They knew the people in Rosewood and had traded with them regularly.<ref group=note>William Bryce, known as "K", was unique; he often disregarded race barriers. As a child, he had a Blackblack friend who was killed by a white man who left him to die in a ditch. The man was never prosecuted, and K Bryce said it "clouded his whole life". (Moore, 1982)</ref> As they passed the area, the Bryces slowed their train and blew the horn, picking up women and children. Fearing reprisals from mobs, they refused to pick up any Blackblack men.<ref name="historian"/> Many survivors boarded the train after having been hidden by white general store owner John Wright and his wife, Mary Jo. Over the next several days, other Rosewood residents fled to Wright's house, facilitated by Sheriff Walker, who asked Wright to transport as many residents out of town as possible.

Lee Ruth Davis, her sister, and two brothers were hidden by the Wrights while their father hid in the woods. On the morning of Poly Wilkerson's funeral, the Wrights left the children alone to attend. Davis and her siblings crept out of the house to hide with relatives in the nearby town of Wylly, but they were turned back for being too dangerous. The children spent the day in the woods but decided to return to the Wrights' house. After spotting men with guns on their way back, they crept back to the Wrights, who were frantic with fear.<ref name="jones"/> Davis later described the experience: "I was laying that deep in water, that is where we sat all day long&nbsp;... We got on our bellies and crawled. We tried to keep people from seeing us through the bushes&nbsp;... We were trying to get back to Mr. Wright house. After we got all the way to his house, Mr. and Mrs. Wright were all the way out in the bushes hollering and calling us, and when we answered, they were so glad."<ref name="historian"/> Several other white residents of Sumner hid Blackblack residents of Rosewood and smuggled them out of town. Gainesville's Blackblack community took in many of Rosewood's evacuees, waiting for them at the train station and greeting survivors as they disembarked, covered in sheets. On Sunday, January 7, a mob of 100 to 150 white peoplewhites returned to burn the remaining dozen or so structures of Rosewood.<ref>"Last Negro Homes Razed Rosewood; Florida Mob Deliberately Fires One House After Another in Block Section", ''The New York Times'' (January 8, 1923), p. 4.</ref>

When Philomena Goins Doctor found out what her son had done, she became enraged and threatened to disown him, shook him, then slapped him.<ref name="video1"/> A year later, Moore took the story to [[CBS]]' ''[[60 Minutes]],'' and was the background reporter on a piece produced by Joel Bernstein and narrated by African-American journalist [[Ed Bradley]]. Philomena Doctor called her family members and declared Moore's story and Bradley's television exposé were full of lies.<ref>D'Orso, pp. 79–80.</ref> A psychologist at the University of Florida later testified in state hearings that the survivors of Rosewood showed signs of [[posttraumatic stress disorder]], made worse by the secrecy. Many years after the incident, they exhibited fear, denial, and [[hypervigilance]] about socializing with whites—which they expressed specifically regarding their children, interspersed with bouts of apathy.<ref name="jones"/> Despite such characteristics, survivors counted religious faith as integral to their lives following the attack in Rosewood, to keep them from becoming bitter. Michael D'Orso, who wrote a book about Rosewood, said, "[E]veryone told me in their own way, in their own words, that if they allowed themselves to be bitter, to hate, it would have eaten them up."<ref>Halton, Beau (October 21, 1997). [http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/102197/2b3rosew.html "No Resentment, Survivors Say"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080317111258/http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/102197/2b3rosew.html |date=2008-03-17 }} {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080317111258/http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/102197/2b3rosew.html |date=2008-03-17 }} , ''Jacksonville Times Union''. Retrieved on March 28, 2008.</ref> Robie Mortin described her past this way: "I knew that something went very wrong in my life because it took a lot away from me. But I wasn't angry or anything."<ref name="people"/>

The lawsuit missed the filing deadline of January 1, 1993. The speaker of the [[Florida House of Representatives]] commissioned a group to research and provide a report by which the equitable claim bill could be evaluated. It took them nearly a year to do the research, including interviews, and writing. On December 22, 1993, historians from [[Florida State University]], [[Florida A&M University]], and the [[University of Florida]] delivered a 100-page report (with 400 pages of attached documentation) on the Rosewood massacre. It was based on available primary documents, and interviews mostly with black survivors of the incident. Due to the media attention received by residents of Cedar Key and Sumner following filing of the claim by survivors, white participants were discouraged from offering interviews to the historians. The report used a taped description of the events by Jason McElveen, a Cedar Key resident who had since died,<ref>D'Orso, p. 183.</ref> and an interview with Ernest Parham, who was in high school in 1923 and happened upon the lynching of Sam Carter. Parham said he had never spoken of the incident because he was never asked.<ref>D'Orso, pp. 192–193, 253–254.</ref> The report was titled "Documented History of the Incident which Occurred at Rosewood, Florida in January 1923".<ref>"[http://dlis.dos.state.fl.us/library/bibliographies/Rosewood_bib.cfm Rosewood Bibliography] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140410115151/http://dlis.dos.state.fl.us/library/bibliographies/Rosewood_bib.cfm |date=2014-04-10 }} {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140410115151/http://dlis.dos.state.fl.us/library/bibliographies/Rosewood_bib.cfm |date=2014-04-10 }} ", Florida Department of State. Retrieved on April 28, 2015.</ref><ref>[[#Incident at Rosewood|Jones ''et al.'']]</ref> Gary Moore, the investigative journalist who wrote the 1982 story in ''The St. Petersburg Times'' that reopened the Rosewood case, criticized demonstrable errors in the report. The commissioned group retracted the most serious of these, without public discussion. They delivered the final report to the [[Florida Board of Regents]] and it became part of the legislative record.<ref name="dye"/>

Even legislators who agreed with the sentiment of the bill asserted that the events in Rosewood were typical of the era. One survivor interviewed by Gary Moore said that to single out Rosewood as an exception, as if the entire world was not a Rosewood, would be "vile".<ref name="moore"/> FloridaState Representativeslegislators who supported the bill Democrat [[Al Lawson]] and Republican [[Miguel De Grandy]], argued that, unlike Native Americans or slaves who had suffered atrocities at the hands of whites, the residents of Rosewood were tax-paying, self-sufficient citizens who deserved the protection of local and state law enforcement. While mob lynchings of black people around the same time tended to be spontaneous and quickly concluded, the incident at Rosewood was prolonged over a period of several days.<ref name="video1"/> Some legislators began to receive hate mail, including some claiming to be from Ku Klux Klan members. One legislator remarked that his office received an unprecedented response to the bill, with a proportion of ten constituents to one opposing it.<ref name="dye"/>

Black and Hispanic legislators in Florida took on the Rosewood compensation bill as a cause, and refused to support Democratic Governor [[Lawton Chiles]]' healthcare plan until he put pressure on Housethe DemocratsDemocrat controlled state assembly to vote forin favor of the bill. Chiles was offended, as he had supported the compensation bill from its early days, and the legislative caucuses had previously promised their support for his healthcare plan.<ref name="bassett"/> The legislature passed the bill, and Governor Chiles signed the Rosewood Compensation Bill, a $2.1 million package to compensate survivors and their descendants. Seven survivors and their family members were present at the signing to hear Chiles say,

The Rosewood massacre, the ensuing silence, and the compensation hearing were the subject of the 1996 book titled ''Like Judgment Day: The Ruin and Redemption of a Town Called Rosewood'' by [[Mike D'Orso]]. It was a ''[[New York Times]]'' bestseller and won the [[Lillian Smith Book Award]], bestowed by the [[University of Georgia]] Libraries and the Southern Regional Council to authors who highlight racial and social inequality in their works.<ref>[http://www.libs.uga.edu/hargrett/lilliansmith/lsawardwinners1.html "Lillian Smith Book Award "] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121009171320/http://www.libs.uga.edu/hargrett/lilliansmith/lsawardwinners1.html |date=2012-10-09 }} {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120616073213/http://www.libs.uga.edu/hargrett/lilliansmith/lsawardwinners1.html |date=2012-06-16 }} University of Georgia Library (March 16, 2009). Accessed March 30, 2009.</ref>

Reception of the film was mixed. Shipp commented on Singleton's creating a fictional account of Rosewood events, saying that the film "assumes a lot and then makes up a lot more".<ref name="shipp">Shipp, E. R. (March 16, 1997). "Film View: Taking Control of Old Demons by Forcing Them Into the Light", ''The New York Times'', p. 13.</ref> The film version alludes to many more deaths than the highest counts by eyewitnesses. Gary Moore believes that creating an outside character who inspires the citizens of Rosewood to fight back condescends to survivors, and he criticized the inflated death toll specifically, saying the film was "an interesting experience in illusion".<ref name="persall">Persall, Steve, (February 17, 1997) "A Burning Issue", ''The St. Petersburg Times'', p. 1D.</ref> OnIn the other handcontrast, in 2001 [[Stanley Crouch]] of ''The New York Times'' described ''Rosewood'' as Singleton's finest work, writing, "Never in the history of American film had Southern racist hysteria been shown so clearly. Color, class and sex were woven together on a level that [[William Faulkner|Faulkner]] would have appreciated."<ref>Crouch, Stanley (August 26, 2001). "[https://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/26/movies/film-a-lost-generation-and-its-exploiters.html?sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all Film; A Lost Generation and its Exploiters] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160306180634/http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/26/movies/film-a-lost-generation-and-its-exploiters.html?sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all |date=2016-03-06 }}", ''[[The New York Times]]''. Retrieved on April 17, 2009.</ref>

|url-status=dead}}</ref> Scattered structures remain within the community, including a church, a business, and a few homes, notably John Wright's. Mary Hall Daniels, the last known survivor of the massacre at the time of her death, died at the age of 98 in [[Jacksonville, Florida]], on May 2, 2018.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Caplan|first=Andrew|date=May 28, 2018|title=Longest-living Rosewood survivor: 'I'm not angry'|work=The Gainesville Sun|url=https://www.gainesville.com/news/20180528/longest-living-rosewood-survivor-im-not-angry|access-date=November 21, 2020}}</ref> Vera Goins-Hamilton, who had not previously been publicly identified as a survivor of the Rosewood massacre, died at the age of 100 in [[Lacoochee, Florida]], in 2020.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Carter|first=Rod|date=June 17, 2020|title=Pasco County woman said to be true Rosewood survivor passes away|work=Channel 8 (Tampa)|url=https://www.wfla.com/news/pasco-county/late-pasco-county-woman-said-to-be-last-true-rosewood-survivor-passes-away/|access-date=November 24, 2020}}</ref>

The Real Rosewood Foundation, Inc., under the leadership of Jenkins, is raising funds to move John Wright's house to nearby [[Archer, Florida]], and make it a museum.<ref>{{cite news

The Statestate of Florida in 2020 established a Rosewood Family Scholarship Program, paying up to $6,100 each to up to 50 students each year who are direct descendants of Rosewood families.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Statutes & Constitution :View Statutes : Online Sunshine|url=http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String=&URL=1000-1099/1009/Sections/1009.55.html|access-date=2020-12-31|website=www.leg.state.fl.us}}</ref>

* [[Michael D'Orso|D'Orso, Michael]] (1996). ''Like Judgment Day: The Ruin and Redemption of a Town Called Rosewood'', Grosset/Putnam. {{ISBN|0-399-14147-2}}

* Dunn, Marvin. (2013). ''The Beast in Florida: A History of Anti-Black Violence'', [[University Press of Florida]]. {{ISBN|978-0-8130-4163-6}} ([http://upf.com/Mkt/Dunn_public_statement.pdf This book has been unpublished by the University Press of Florida and is not a valid reference])

* [[Michael Gannon (historian)|Gannon, Michael]] (ed.) (1996). ''A New History of Florida'', [[University Press of Florida]]. {{ISBN|0-8130-1415-8}}

* Gonzalez-Tennant. (2018).''[http://upf.com/book.asp?id=9780813056784 The Rosewood Massacre: An Archaeology and History of Intersectional Violence]'', University Press of Florida. {{ISBN|9780813056784}}.

* {{cite news

* Jackson, Kenneth T. (1992). ''The Ku Klux Klan in the City, 1915–1930'', Elephant Paperback. {{ISBN|0-8223-0730-8}}

* Jones, Maxine; McCarthy, Kevin (1993). ''African Americans in Florida'', Pineapple Press. {{ISBN|1-56164-030-1}}

* <cite id="Incident at Rosewood"></cite>Jones, Maxine; Rivers, Larry; Colburn, David; Dye, Tom; Rogers, William (1993). "[https://web.archive.org/web/20090126110750/http://displaysforschools.com/rosewoodrp.html A Documented History of the Incident Which Occurred at Rosewood, Florida in 1923]" (hosted online by Displays for Schools).

* <cite id="Appendices"></cite>Jones, Maxine; Rivers, Larry; Colburn, David; Dye, Tom; Rogers, William (1993). "Appendices: A Documented History of the Incident Which Occurred at Rosewood, Florida in 1923".

* [[Charlton Tebeau|Tebeau, Charlton]] (1971). ''A History of Florida'', [[University of Miami]] Press. {{ISBN|0-87024-149-4}}

* {{cite book |ref={{SfnRef|D'Orso,|1996|p=}} |last1=D'Orso |first1=Michael |author-link1=Mike D'Orso |date=1996 |title=Like Judgment Day: The Ruin and Redemption of a Town Called Rosewood |url=https://archive.org/details/likejudgmentdayr0000dors_v2c6/page/n5/mode/2up |url-access=registration |publisher=[[G.P. Putnam's Sons]] |isbn=9780399141478 |via=[[Internet Archive]] }} {{LCCN|9538492}}; {{ISBN|0-3991-4147-2}}; {{OCLC|33047183|show=all}}.

* Markovitz, Jonathan. ''Legacies of Lynching: Racial Violence and Memory,'' [[University of Minnesota Press]], 2004. Section on Singleton's film.

* Schumacher, Aileen. ''Rosewood's Ashes'' (2002). A fictional murder mystery that uses the massacre at Rosewood as historical backdrop.

* [http://rosewoodflorida.com/ The Real Rosewood website]

* [http://www.virtualrosewood.com/ Rosewood Heritage & VR Project]

<!--* [https://web.archive.org/web/2009022105065320141218161140/http://dliswww.dosthewhitehouseboysonline.state.fl.uscom/fgils/rosewood_bibARTICLE-ROSEWOOD-VS-STATE.html ''Rosewood Victims v. State Libraryof andFlorida''], ArchivesSpecial Master's Report (of the Florida Bibliography:legislature), RosewoodMarch Bibliography]-->24, 1994

* [http://www.displaysforschoolsgettyimages.com/history.htmllicense/515114374 ''RememberingHistorical Rosewood''],images byafter Displaysthe for Schools, Inc.riots]

[[Category:1923 riots in the United States]]

[[Category:JanuaryAfrican-American 1923history eventsof Florida]]

[[Category:MassacresAnti-black racism in 1923Florida]]

[[Category:Mass murderMassacres in the United States1923]]