Rosewood, Florida
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Rosewood was a small community of 25 to 30, mostly black families in Levy County of central Florida, USA [1]. It was a whistle stop on the Seaboard Air Line Railway. Today it is mainly known for the racist disorder there in January 1923, also known as the Rosewood Massacre. Rosewood was invaded and burned down by a white mob after a white woman named Fannie Taylor claimed a black man had raped her. The black majority of the inhabitants, men, women, and children alike, were dispossessed in the violence, and 8 to 17 people were killed. The entire community was burned down, never to be rebuilt. After Rosewood was destroyed, it was discovered that Taylor had been beaten, but not raped, by a white man.
The incident, as well as the town itself, subsequently slipped into oblivion, but it was rediscovered in the 1990s. The Florida legislature awarded compensation to the victims in 1994.
The murders and arson in Rosewood, Florida were the subject of the 1997 film Rosewood.
Book references
- Rosewood's Ashes by Schumacher, Aileen (2002) ISBN 0373264194
External links
- Remembering Rosewood, by Displays for Schools, Inc.
- http://www.musarium.com/withoutsanctuary/main.html
- The Rosewood Report, commissioned by the Florida House of Representatives to determine the basis for reparations; includes a chronology
- Rosewood Victims vs State of Florida, the final disposition of the reparations case