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Friend,
Nine miles before Florida State Road 24 dead-ends in the Gulf of Mexico, a cast aluminum historical marker stands next to a white two-story home – all that is left of Rosewood, a once-thriving, predominantly Black town terrorized and razed to the ground by a racist mob 100 years ago this month.
But thanks to decades of persistence by descendants of victims of the massacre, the memory of Rosewood burns more brightly today than the fires that ravaged it in January 1923, when white rioters, drawn by the unverified account of a white woman who claimed she had been beaten and assaulted by a Black drifter, set the town aflame in a murderous rampage.
For almost 60 years the massacre, which left at least six murdered while the rest, including dozens of children, escaped in the middle of the night, running through swamps, hiding in the woods and leaping onto train cars, was all but erased from historical memory. No law enforcement agency investigated, and no one was ever charged with crimes. The erasure mirrored that of racial violence across the U.S., where lynchings and mob attacks in Chicago, Tulsa, Omaha, and in small towns and large cities across the country were, and in many cases continue to be, left unremarked and unremembered save by communities of survivors.
In recent decades Rosewood has made itself the exception. In the 1990s, descendants, working with a law firm that signed on to help them pro bono, pushed the Florida Legislature to commission a study on the history of Rosewood, so historians could verify survivors’ accounts. They marshaled a media campaign to raise awareness of the massacre and to overcome the fears of Black lawmakers that the issue was too divisive. They lobbied conservative state lawmakers by focusing not on racial justice but property rights.
The efforts paid off.
In 1994, after years of legal struggles, the Florida Legislature passed a bill awarding $2.1 million in compensation to survivors of the massacre and their descendants. It was a fraction of what descendants had sought but remains to this day the only government reparations ever paid to victims of anti-Black racial violence in the U.S. Four years later, Florida passed a law allowing descendants of Rosewood victims to attend Florida colleges and universities tuition-free. More than 300 have done so to date. In 2004, then-Florida Gov. Jeb Bush traveled to Rosewood to dedicate the Florida Heritage Landmark historical marker, memorializing those who died and whose lives were forever impacted by the massacre.
Rosewood descendants and hundreds of other people will gather next week at the weeklong Remembering Rosewood Centennial Commemoration – co-sponsored by the Southern Poverty Law Center – first for a wreath-laying ceremony in what was once the prosperous town and then for a series of events at the University of Florida Fredric G. Levin College of Law in Gainesville, about 50 miles away. Attendees will celebrate their success at confronting white supremacy and reclaiming history. But they will also mourn what was lost when Rosewood was destroyed, decry the limits of what justice descendants have attained, and condemn both the resurgent white nationalism in this country as well as the deepening pushback in Florida and elsewhere by right-wing politicians and policymakers against an honest reckoning with history.
“We are deeply honored to partner with the descendants of Rosewood to bring this painful history to light – and to radically imagine a future where all people are free from the grip of white supremacy,” said Margaret Huang, president and CEO of the SPLC. “This kind of truth-telling is necessary to end the centuries of oppression and anti-Black racism that continue to haunt communities today. It is through this shared learning and reflection that we, as a nation, can begin to heal and ensure equity and justice for all.”
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In solidarity,
Your friends at the Southern Poverty Law Center
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