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When U.S. troop training began for World War I, many white Southerners were alarmed at the thought of arming black soldiers. A confrontation regarding the rights of black soldiers culminated in the [[Houston Riot (1917)|Houston Riot of 1917]]. German [[propaganda]] encouraged black soldiers to turn against their "real" enemies: American whites. Rumors reached the U.S. that French women had been sexually active with black 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 black citizens to raise fears among whites of an impending race war in the South.
The influx of black 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 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 whites attacked the black Greenwood community. David Colburn distinguishes two types of violence against black 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,
[[File:Rosewood Massacre Map.PNG|thumb|350 px|alt=A color digital map showing the location of Rosewood in relation to other towns involved in the massacre|Map of [[Rosewood, Florida]] and the surrounding towns]]
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