When we think of the past we do not often want to be reminded of our sins. In fact, with our modern day distractions it is easier to run from them. The internet makes an entire world of information accessible with the click of a button, but it also makes it easy for us to pull a blanket of misinformation over our eyes. Recent events have brought out certain undertones of racial violence that have been prevalent in our society since really the dawn of America. Counter to that so has the dim fuse of bigotry. From racism being a ‘myth’ created by the liberal agenda to racism simply not existing anymore because of diversity training there have been many arguments made. In this highly nuanced and complicated realm of emotionally charged hot button topics we often forget that what we are talking about is not a campaign for political correctness but real human beings suffering real human pain.

 

In the first week of January in 1923 there was a great rumble beneath the earth. They bragged about their ravaged land, their conquered mass, the great battle that had been started by a small innocuous lie. You can find it in historical papers and small whisperings in gated communities. But what was once bragged about as a great victory of the pale faced man is now buried beneath a shroud of darkness. When the past of racial impropriety is denied we must look no further than Rosewood where we can find a brutal history of violence in ash and blood. During the dubiety that took place over the course of the early Jim Crowe Laws a small town in Levy County, Florida found a way to thrive. Rosewood was a largely African American community where blacks were able to work sustained and thriving businesses and small positions of power. It was a safer place at the time of 22 African American occupied households along the Seaboard Air Line Railway which, in later told stories, was talked up to be a safe haven for African Americans. Rosewood had a cedar sawmill that had gone in deep decline but was still the bedrock of the surrounding communities looking for work and prosperity during a time when the Timber industry and sustainable trade were the backbone of thriving towns. The surmounting power of this particular African American community and the rising tension in the southern states all set the stage for what would be referred to in the future as one of the biggest “racial cleansings” of the era. In the nearby town of Sumner, three miles from Rosewood, an attack occurred in the morning.

 

On January 1st, 1923 a young woman named Fannie Taylor called out from her home with a black eye. She told her neighbors she had been attacked by an African American intruder whom she did not get a good look of. Her attacker was a vague drifter who she assumed was trying to rob her and she only claimed of being attacked but not raped or sexually assaulted. Later these details would be amplified to excuse the violent rioting that would come. A small group of officials as well as a hound we- nt out to try to find her attacker but when he wasn’t found or named, frustrat- ed hunters began to change their suspi- cions to a black inmate who had recently esc- aped. A conspiracy unfolded that Aaron Carrier, a young black Rosewood resident, and Sam Carter helped the mysterious attacker escape from the town of Sumner. First they found Aaron Carrier who was tortured for information. However, he never gave them anything of use, a group of white dissenters rescued him and hid him far away from the county line in the Alachua County Jail. Then they found Sam Carter who was eventually tortured and killed. He was the first to go. On January 4th after several days of searching for answers, a small group of white men in an alcohol fused dance went on a midnight raid to Rosewood to the home of Sarah Carrier. As they stood outside the door of the home calling out for them to release Sylvester Carrier, the people inside hid quietly. They answered their calls with silence to which the mob replied by shooting the dog on the front porch. This set the scene and gunfire began to pour into the house killing Sarah Carrier and wounding young Ruben Mitchell within. As the others hid underneath beds and behind furniture, Sylvester Carrier fired back killing two white men and injuring a few others. This dispelled the crowd for only a short period. The remaining children in the house were sent to run out into the woods where they would have the best chance for surviving further attacks. When the remaining wounded found their way back, their stories turned quickly from a midnight raid gone wrong to an all-out black rebellion.

 

This sent shocks through the community which was already being held together by threads of trust and lax laws. The St. Petersburg Independent and the Miami Herald, among others, reported a “race war” describing a band of a “negro desperado” killing white men. This sparked what could only be described as a mass hysteria within the community. Within days whites ripped through the small black community setting homes on fire, unleashing gun fire, and lynching anyone who was found wandering the streets. Residents of the small town only survived by scattering to the west or the north, finding safe havens in towns farther away. The mob of white men and women ranged from 200 to 300 hundred people and ranges of brutal acts took place, but there were some in the threshold who tried to save or hide black residents by hiding them or helping them flee to the railway station nearby. When all the fires had died down, the official death toll was released as six blacks and two whites. However, the actual death toll has been the issue of some debate as many had evacuated and others were buried without notification. Nationwide coverage and misinformation fueled an even bigger flame. Requests were telegrammed to the US Attorney General in Washington, DC requesting an investigation into the incidents. After January 8th, 1923 an all-white jury found insufficient evidence to prosecute anyone.

 

In the years to come Rosewood would remain burned down and emptied. Silence was accepted for the safety of the families. Many believed that if they were IDed as ex-Rosewood residents that they would be in danger of backlash. Others simply wanted to forget the tragedies of the past. The papers were burned, the children hushed, all the flame and fear of yesterday was hidden behind mute aging minds in a culture of silence for what would be decades. It wasn’t until a reporter named Gary Moore from the St. Petersburg Times began asking questions about the almost all white community of Cedar Key that the truth began to uncoil. "After a week of sensation, the weeks of January 1923 seem to have dropped completely from Florida's consciousness, like some unmentionable skeleton in the family closet" Moore wrote. (1) And soon would begin a long painful battle for truth, justice, and a moment of history once buried in a shallow grave to come to light once more. Rosewood is still not often spoken of or taught in history class rooms. It takes some digging to find the truth and even now as we write or speak of it we can only piece together a small portion of the tragedy. Only through acknowledging our history may we be able to rise above it.

 

It was once said that history is written by the victors and yet we still find ourselves denying historical bedrocks that were once labeled as victories. We now see how wrong they were. Atrocities like slavery and racial violence where a complete disregard for human life was shown were once talked about in brothels and over dinner tables as examples of class standards, like your new pair of shoes or your PSL. As we began to look up and tell the victorious among us that we were not commodities but people, the world may begin to change. The abolishment of slavery, the fight against segregation, and criminalization came in long and slow waves met against the rocks and the sand in heavy splashes but just as we violently met the earth we found ourselves pulled back that much further. History was written by the ‘victorious’ but now as we come to grips with the acts we once celebrated as victories, we find ourselves sickened by our lack of humanity. What we know to be evil, we now sweep beneath the waves, as if we did not claim them as our own.