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The '''Rosewood massacre''' was a racially motivated [[massacre]] of black people and the destruction of a black 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 white people were killed (in self-defense by one of the victims), but eyewitness accounts suggested a higher death toll of 27 to 150. In addition, two white people were killed in self-defense by on 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 black 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 black 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 the [[lynching of Charles Strong]] and the [[Perry massacre]] in 1922.
Before the massacre, the town of Rosewood had been a quiet, primarily black, self-sufficient [[whistle stop]] on the [[Seaboard Air Line Railway]]. Trouble began when white men from several nearby towns lynched a black Rosewood resident because of accusations that a white woman in nearby [[Sumner, Florida|Sumner]] had been assaulted by a black drifter. A mob of several hundred whites combed the countryside hunting for black 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 black and white residents; none of them ever moved back and the town ceased to exist.
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