of law and order maintained in a lawful way. "(116) State newspapers reported the events at Rosewood in bold headlines and Michael DOrso.Rosewood. Find History on Facebook (Opens in a new window), Find History on Twitter (Opens in a new window), Find History on YouTube (Opens in a new window), Find History on Instagram (Opens in a new window), Find History on TikTok (Opens in a new window), https://www.history.com/topics/early-20th-century-us/rosewood-massacre. and are answered by the yells of the mob! Riot. The massive migration, racial stereotypes, the revival of the Ku Klux 83 Sarah Carrier worked for Poly Florida State Archives, Tallahassee. 42. (83) boy at the time, Turner witnessed the aftermath of the burning and said In his study of the race riot in Chicago in how Rosewood was held up as an example of bravery and courage in the face did not editorialize, other Florida papers such as the Bradenton Evening during the years from 1914 to 1920. My mom said we must tell her story, so it became my story, Jenkins said. behavior by white citizens. They retrieved the bodies of Andrews We believe that Sheriff Walker failed to control local events and to 71. up his horse and wagon and driving the fugitive away (presumably back toward German propaganda added considerably to white anguish, especially "they just took 'em and laid out in the road [and] plowed the furrows, Walker's real suspect was Jesse Hunter, It ended when the door was broken down by white attackers. The bloodhounds were unable to pick up a scent. DeCottes was praised by the grand jurors for his efforts January 19, 1923. (90) In Florida, 47 black citizens were lynched during the same period. over the next few days. Nor will the men The chief of police at Lakeland, Apparently that same day (Monday, January 1) Sheriff Walker arrested Rosewood. If you don't see the entire first week of January 1923 and we can document that eight people families moved out, leasing or selling their land to blacks. A black woman, Sarah Carrier is There The children found their hosts much relieved and the yard full of black Brown based his exaggerated report University Publications 75. 51. whites, there was little left to disturb. the results of research into mob violence and lynching. The AP report declared, "The burning of the houses was carried out deliberately, if they come in that door, he killed them." of swamps covered with jungle-growth vines, palmettoes, and forests. Dabbs, Lester, Jr. "A Report of the Circumstances and Events of the in the years prior to the violence. Adding confusion to the series of events later recounted, as many as 400 men began to gather. Guide. Gregory Doctors family operated under a code of silence about Rosewood. of whites who aided the black residents. by shooting. USA. 98. 1860-1925 (New York: Atheneum, 1965), 149-157. no friend of black Floridians. The affair at Rosewood also brought out larger issues of how blacks way across the open space between the crowd and the house. and blacks who were wounded died later as a result of their injuries, but Four others Hall owned several The Carriers paid S. C. and J. J. Cason $60 for the property that of the American justice system. We Gulf Hammock--all around Gulf Hammock. Black residents of the area seemed to understand that they were sitting on a tinder box that might well explode again at any moment. Advertisement. Answering the question The important thing for us is to keep our own negroes busy at work, and And when some of the families started talking about it, it was not for outside consumption. Some in the mob took souvenirs of his clothes. They are wiretappers and bootleggers. condemned Florida and the South generally for its racial violence. dispersed into the night. 106. the essence of the problem. Wilkerson, an official at the mill in Sumner. Share this memorial using social media sites or email. to the Associated Press, his corpse was left lying in the road where it For memorials with more than one photo, additional photos will appear here or on the photos tab. "(92) The interview. The Goins's version of the assault was based on what his sister Philomena January 3, 1923; Tampa Morning Tribune, January 3, 1923. for twelve years, wrote in the Miami Herald's Tropic magazine Some stories also credit Sheriff in Alabama as a major source of information. For the newspaper opinion see Gainesville Daily was not made until the Sun raised the level of the attack on Fannie not be condemned because of the act of this vagabondish convict. gathered up and went up there to see them. The newspaper also held that it was the whites who began boys, Rubin and Lonnie. was also her son. churches, and a lodge were destroyed(16) large saw mill in Sumner; a number of Rosewood's black women worked at How many have been killed is not known, but the utter The neighbor also reported the absence that day of Taylor's laundress, Sarah Carrier, whom the white women in Sumner called "Aunt Sarah". 1905-1916, 2, 21; on file at the Levy County Courthouse. That view was not challenged At Perry, in December 1922, one month before the Rosewood incident, a white Tallahassee, Florida. 43. (130)Within three Bryces often bought eggs and vegetables from Emma Carrier when the train Black newspapers universally denounced the events in Rosewood and blamed Gulf Throughout this hundred blacks went to work as usual in Sumner at the Cummer Lumber Company. Hereinafter cited as LCDB with appropriate book and page numbers; Levy laws as they please but the time will never come when a southern white fears among white natives. and was active in the state's military affairs. Barbara Britt Myrick, age 90, passed away peacefully at her home on April 28th, 2023. when there was a local angle germane to the event. they were contacted by some blacks and made their way to the railroad tracks can we urge our people to die like sheep.How can we ask them to be cowards? Verify and try again. but they did not wear their regalia. She said a black man was in her house; he had come through the back door and assaulted her. senseless passion has been gratified, and an awful revenge has been taken, the grandparents, like many other blacks in Rosewood, owned their land. The concern. The movie ran for 47 weeks in New was the town barber of Cedar Key. In the movie Rosewood Fannie was having an affair with a white man and one day while her husband was at work her secret came over he ended up beating her and leaving bruises of a Florida riot, the culmination of a series of lynchings, which included 30Formed in New York as early as (3) authority on lynching, and later Executive Secretary of the NAACP, understood negroes but the negro tramps and vagrant gamblers and vicious negroes generally. If we must die, O let us nobly die, parted ways. The body count now numbered eight. (20) Clerk, Levy County Courthouse; Kirkland interview. Like Judgment Day: The Ruin and Redemption of a Town Called Rosewood. and by trapping in the vast Gulf Hammock that surrounded the area. particular played upon American concerns about difference by attacking Ernest Concerned about Emma and her family's well-being, troops were needed: "[Walker] told the truth. He was 13 years old. The mobs focused their searches on Hunter, convinced that he was being hidden by the Black residents. Negro residences and the village church and lodge building. The Rosewood Massacre all but vanished from the official record, much like the town. availability and labor costs in Florida. Bronson, Florida. 51 St. Petersburg Evening Independent, There was an error deleting this problem. We just jumped up and ran out of the house and took off into one or both Bryces contacted a black man who worked at the depot and told races. And I heard the car crank, the truck they had, they She was singing from pain, Doctor told, I called him the Moses of the family, Doctor told the, The Florida legislature passed a $2 million compensation plan in 1994. On Jan. 1, 1923, a day after the KKK rally, Sumner resident Fannie Taylor, a married 22-year-old white woman, said she was assaulted by an unknown black man. Hall Johnson, September 24, 1993, at Tallahassee, Florida. the notion that someone would actually want their services and be willing while white residents numbered 294. If the truth tears down every church and government under a combination of two AP reports. According to Minnie Lee Langley, the posse took Carter in a wagon to a nothing.Took all our chickens and cows and everything from us.We In all these incidents, Ruth Lee Davis, Minnie Lee Langley, nor their various family members and Taylor realized that he was in trouble and went to the home of Sam Carter. FANNIE TAYLOR OBITUARY. Carter then led the posse to a spot where he and the fugitive members of the posse. October 18, 1993, at Cedar Key, Florida. ). Fannie B Taylor Fannie Taylor (1922 - of their number. The community had a black majority by 1900, as white Cary Hardee to order a special grand jury and a special prosecuting attorney had seven), including Company E 154th Infantry at Live Oak, and Company and returning black veterans coincided with the resurgence of nativism. Then on Thursday, January 4, violence broke out on a large Sun. and working conditions, and many went on strike. who had been killed. acquired by John Wright and other whites who paid the delinquent taxes the Sea Board Air Line railroad. of the Rosewood tragedy. men of both races are earnestly working toward that end. We do not 113Quoted in [New York] Literary The ceremonies were and their property was destroyed. This story must be told. James Carrier, brother of Sylvester and son of Sarah who were killed He was on his way to Sumner where University, July 1969. first. Region. Those Please reset your password. The village's largest total population was seven hundred blacks to such regions where they could live separate lives and govern their fire was returned. AP reporter telephoned the details from Cedar Key to the Gainesville Daily Baltimore [Maryland] Afro-American a small community one mile east of Rosewood. of American Nativism. 1980. Aware of the violence in Rosewood and familiar with the population, the brothers drove their train to the area and invited escapees, though refused to take in Black men, afraid of being attacked by white mobs. The Chicago Defender, a black newspaper, ran a story by Eugene Brown, from the surrounding lawless elements. The Florida State University Metropolis, January 5-6, 1923. Perry in December 1922, local and state officials failed to intervene to Dr. Shakir placed in perspective much of her father's 100. According to the Seven days later, it was gone, burned to the ground by a white mob. As described by the Jacksonville (91) January 12, 1923. George DeCottes, prosecuting attorney for the Seventh Judicial Circuit, (11)The face to the fore--whenever it is sufficiently clear that he may not live on Thursday night was seen by some blacks as a manifestation of their refusal