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=== Escalation ===
[[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 }}
Despite the efforts of Sheriff Walker and mill supervisor W. H. Pillsbury to disperse the mobs, white men continued to gather. On the evening of January 4, a mob of armed white men went to Rosewood and surrounded the house of Sarah Carrier. It was filled with approximately 15 to 25 people seeking refuge, including many children hiding upstairs under mattresses. Some of the children were in the house because they were visiting their grandmother for Christmas.<ref name="moore"/> They were protected by Sylvester Carrier and possibly two other men, but Carrier may have been the only one armed. He had a reputation of being proud and independent. In Rosewood, he was a formidable character, a crack shot, expert hunter, and music teacher, who was simply called "Man". Many white people considered him arrogant and disrespectful.<ref name="historian"/><ref name="moore"/>
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In 1982, an investigative reporter named Gary Moore from the ''[[St. Petersburg Times]]'' drove from the Tampa area to Cedar Key looking for a story. When he commented to a local on the "gloomy atmosphere" of [[Cedar Key]], and questioned why a Southern town was all-white when at the start of the 20th century it had been nearly half black, the local woman replied, "I know what you're digging for. You're trying to get me to talk about that massacre." Moore was hooked.<ref name="davey">Davey, Monica (January 26, 1997). "Beyond Rosewood", ''The St. Petersburg Times'' (Florida), p. 1A.</ref><ref>[[#Appendices|Jones ''et al.'', "Appendices"]], p. 398.</ref> He was able to convince Arnett Doctor to join him on a visit to the site, which he did without telling his mother. Moore addressed the disappearance of the incident from written or spoken history: "After a week of sensation, the weeks of January 1923 seem to have dropped completely from Florida's consciousness, like some unmentionable skeleton in the family closet".<ref name="moore">Moore, Gary (July 25, 1982). "Rosewood", ''The Floridian'', insert magazine of ''The St. Petersburg Times'' (Florida), pp. 6–19.</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 }}
The legacy of Rosewood remained in Levy County. For decades no black residents lived in Cedar Key or Sumner. Robin Raftis, the white editor of the ''Cedar Key Beacon'', tried to place the events in an open forum by printing Moore's story. She had been collecting anecdotes for many years, and said, "Things happened out there in the woods. There's no doubt about that. How bad? We don't know ... So I said, 'Okay guys, I'm opening the closet with the skeletons, because if we don't learn from mistakes, we're doomed to repeat them'." Raftis received notes reading, "We know how to get you and your kids. All it takes is a match".<ref name="booth">Booth, William (May 30, 1993). "Rosewood: 70 Years Ago, a Town Disappeared in a Blaze Fueled by Racial Hatred. Not Everyone Has Forgotten", ''The Washington Post'', p. F1.</ref>
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Arnett Doctor told the story of Rosewood to print and television reporters from all over the world. He raised the number of historic residents in Rosewood, as well as the number who died at the Carrier house siege; he exaggerated the town's contemporary importance by comparing it to [[Atlanta, Georgia]] as a cultural center. Doctor wanted to keep Rosewood in the news; his accounts were printed with few changes.<ref>D'Orso, pp. 165–166.</ref> According to historian Thomas Dye, Doctor's "forceful addresses to groups across the state, including the NAACP, together with his many articulate and heart-rending television appearances, placed intense pressure on the legislature ... to do something about Rosewood".<ref name="dye"/> In December 1996, Doctor told a meeting at Jacksonville Beach that 30 women and children had been buried alive at Rosewood, and that his facts had been confirmed by journalist Gary Moore. He was embarrassed to learn that Moore was in the audience. As the [[Holland & Knight]] law firm continued the claims case, they represented 13 survivors, people who had lived in Rosewood at the time of the 1923 violence, in the claim to the legislature.<ref>D'Orso, p. 163.</ref>
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 }}
=== Rosewood victims v. the State of Florida ===
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{{multiple image|header=Rosewood historical marker<br>(front and back)|align=right|direction=vertical|image1=Rosewood, Florida historical marker (1).jpg|alt1=A color photograph of the front of the bronze plaque in Rosewood next to the highway|image2=Rosewood, Florida historical marker (2).jpg|alt2=A color photograph of the back of the bronze plaque in Rosewood}}
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 }}
The dramatic feature film ''[[Rosewood (film)|Rosewood]]'' (1997), directed by [[John Singleton]], was based on these historic events. Minnie Lee Langley served as a source for the set designers, and Arnett Doctor was hired as a consultant.<ref name="persall"/><ref name="sylbert">"Raising 'Rosewood'", ''TCI'' (March 1997), pp. 40–43.</ref> Recreated forms of the towns of Rosewood and Sumner were built in Central Florida, far away from Levy County. The film version, written by screenwriter [[Gregory Poirier]], created a character named Mann, who enters Rosewood as a type of reluctant Western-style hero. Composites of historic figures were used as characters, and the film offers the possibility of a happy ending. In ''The New York Times'' [[E.R. Shipp]] suggests that Singleton's youth and his background in [[California]] contributed to his willingness to take on the story of Rosewood. She notes Singleton's rejection of the image of black people as victims and the portrayal of "an idyllic past in which black families are intact, loving and prosperous, and a black superhero who changes the course of history when he escapes the noose, takes on the mob with double-barreled ferocity and saves many women and children from death".<ref name="shipp"/> Singleton has offered his view: "I had a very deep—I wouldn't call it fear—but a deep contempt for the South because I felt that so much of the horror and evil that black people have faced in this country is rooted here ... So in some ways this is my way of dealing with the whole thing."<ref name="levin">Levin, Jordan (June 30, 1996). "Movies: On Location: Dredging in the Deep South John Singleton Digs into the Story of Rosewood, a Town Burned by a Lynch Mob in 1923 ...", ''The Los Angeles Times'', p. 5.</ref>
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