The Rosewood Massacre
—Chrissie
Listen here: https://www.spreaker.com/user/bqn1/hwts161
Rosewood, Florida was initially settled in 1847 in service of the timber industry of the area. Two pencil factories, a sawmill, and other wood-related industry sustained the inhabitants. The early population consisted of both white and Black residents, but after the lumber industry was exhausted and the pencil factories closed in 1890, most of the white residents moved to the nearby village of Sumner, which was predominantly white. By 1920, Rosewood was a thriving community of around 300 people which was relatively self-sufficient. There was also a close relationship with Sumner, with some of the inhabitants of each traveling to the other for their work. The local branch of the recently reinvigorated Ku Klux Klan had members in Sumner, but they seemed quiet, as long as the Rosewood residents only came to Sumner for work, mainly in menial labor.
One of these Rosewood residents, Sarah Carrier, worked as a laundress for the Taylor family in Sumner. Frances and James Taylor and their children were supported by James’ job as a millwright, which often had him leaving the house before dawn. So, on the morning of 1 January 1923, when a neighbor heard Frances scream she ran to help, knowing that James was likely not at home. Frances and been beaten and bruised, and claimed she had been assaulted by a Black man. She could give neither name nor description of her attacker, but local law enforcement connected the assault to a man who had recently escaped from a chain gang. It was decided that he, Jesse Hunter, was the assailant and that Rosewood needed to be searched as he was likely in hiding there. Sarah Carrier’s family told a different story: that Frances had been beaten by her lover and had claimed to have been attacked because she couldn’t explain the bruises without revealing her extramarital affair. Whichever version of events is the truth, it is evident from what followed that the white community was eager to remove the Black one, they simply needed an excuse. Frances Taylor’s story reflected a common trope used by racists that Black men sought to sexually dominate white women. This fear had recently been used by the Klan as recruitment tool and was fresh in people’s minds from the recent movie, Birth of a Nation, in which a central plot point is the suicide of a white girl who was faced with potential rape by a black man.
Levy County sheriff Robert Walker began an investigation which was soon overtaken by a vigilante mob as a crowd of nearly 400 white men gathered in Sumner with the idea of ripping Rosewood apart. To his credit, Walker tried to prevent the mob justice these vigilantes sought. Their first victim was a nephew of Sarah Carrier, Aaron, who was tied to and dragged behind a car until they were stopped by Walker who took the young man into the county’s custody in order to protect him. Walker also sent messages to the Black workers around Sumner to stay where they were, rather than be caught on the road as they went home.
The mob then captured Sam Carter, whom they beat until he admitted that he had hidden the supposed assailant. When Carter couldn’t give Hunter over to the mob, they killed him. Their violence continued, with a siege on the house of Sarah Carrier on the 4th. An armed mob surrounded the house, in which 25 or so people, including many children, had taken refuge. When two of the vigilantes tried to push into the house, shots were fired. We don’t know who shot first. Sarah Carrier was killed in the gunfight, as was Sylvester. Many people in the house were wounded. At least two of the mob were killed, though there are witnesses who claimed there were many more. In the end, no members of the mob got into the house, and the children hiding inside were able to escape out the back door.
Over the course of January 5 and 6, the vigilantes burned both churches in Rosewood and many of the homes. Also on the 6th the (white) Bryce brothers, John and William, used their small personal locomotive to help many people to escape with the help of (white) grocers John and Mary Jo Wright and Sheriff Walker. The Sheriff also posted men on the roads into Rosewood to stop Black residents from trying to return to their homes, as it was not safe to do so. The mob finished their destruction on the 7th, purposefully burning the few remaining buildings in Rosewood, except the store owned by the Wrights.
News of these events was published in all of the major newspapers across the country, with description and interpretation of events varying depending upon where the paper was published and by whom. The attention faded quickly, however.
A grand jury was convened to investigate whether any prosecution could be conducted. The Jim Crow laws in effect at that time meant that it was made up entirely of white men. Though there was a federal right to vote (and thereby participate in juries) for all men established in the Fourteenth Amendment, it was effectively nullified by state-level laws that applied unreasonable eligibility requirements to Black men who sought to register to vote. The grand jury heard the testimony of 25 witnesses, both white and Black, over the course of a few days in February 1923. Unsurprisingly, given the jury’s composition, they determined there was not sufficient evidence to warrant prosecution against anyone involved.
The residents who had barely escaped with their lives did not return to Rosewood, nor did they talk much about why. Rosewood seemed to disappear in both location and memory. The events were forgotten, it seems, intentionally. Even decades later, the trauma was too close to the surface to discuss among those who had experienced it. It was not until 1982, when investigative journalist Gary Moore wrote about the events for the St. Petersburg Times, that it returned to public consciousness. The story was picked up by producers of the television newsmagazine 60 Minutes, whose December 1983 feature introduced the rest of the country to these events.[1] This attention led to greater research by historians and the Rosewood survivors and their families. A 100-page report, with 400 pages of documentation and notes, was published in December 1993, prompting consideration by the Florida state legislature of whether compensation of some type should be considered. Hearings were held in which the survivors of Rosewood and their descendants testified about what had been lost. A focus on physical property allowed the legislature to avoid the question of whether any payments made could be considered reparations, a precedent which they did not wish to set. Instead, the money was restitution for land and goods which had been illegally taken from them and their families. A budget of $1.5 million was decided upon, which was split among the survivors and their descendants. The Florida Department of Education also set up a scholarship fund and provides tuition-free university attendance for any of the Rosewood families. An historical marker was placed at near the site in 2004 and the few buildings left, one of which is the Wright’s store, are now being kept up as an historical site.
[1]60 Minutes Segment: https://youtu.be/cUfhfpuI2i0
The Zinn Education Project page on Rosewood, including links to first-hand accounts: https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/rosewood-massacre