BLACK HISTORY
REMEMBERING ROSEWOOD THIS JANUARY, FLORIDA MAKES HISTORY WITH THE CENTENNIAL COMMEMORATION HONORING THE LEGACY OF A PROSPEROUS BLACK TOWN DESTROYED BY RACIAL VIOLENCE 100 YEARS AGO. BY E. MONIQUE JOHNSON
T
he new year is usually a time of celebration and renewal, but for the residents of a small Florida town, the first week of 1923 was a time of terror, trauma, and tears. A century ago in Levy County, Fla., the town of Rosewood experienced one of the most horrific events in American history. A racially motivated attack decimated the predominantly African American town and devastated its residents. This massacre has been discussed and dissected for years. Immortalized in a 1997 film starring Don Cheadle, Ving Rhames, and Elise Neal, and directed by John Singleton, the horrifying events of Rosewood are anything but fictional. Residents were brutally murdered, their homes burned to the ground, and they were forced to flee into the swamps. After decades, more than 60 years of fear and shame, survivors and descendants of Rosewood got justice. In 1994, the Florida legislature awarded $2.1 million (of a requested $7.2 million) to Rosewood survivors, in a historic judgment making them the first, and then only, African Americans to receive reparations from a legislative body in America. A simple request in 2020 sparked this centennial movement. Before she passed away, The Rosewood Family, Inc., historian Barbara Scantling Moore asked family members to pass on the knowledge of the Rosewood legacy to the public. Inspired by Moore’s request, The Descendants of Rosewood, Inc., was born, ready to be a source of inspiration for the next 100 years and beyond.
10 ONYX MAGAZINE
