The Florida Story We Tried to Forget

The first week of January 1923 began quietly enough in Rosewood.

The small Black community existed in rural Levy County, about nine miles east of Cedar Key in North Florida. It was surrounded by pine forests and linked to nearby towns by dirt roads and rail lines. Families worked in turpentine camps, sawmills and small trades. Children attended school. Neighbors shared food, news and help when it was needed. Rosewood was not wealthy by any means, but it was a stable, self-sustaining town where most of the population worked hard for what they had. 

By the end of that week, Rosewood had been wiped from the map.

According to records preserved by Florida Memory, the violence began after an incident in the nearby white town of Sumner on Jan. 1, 1923. A young white woman named Fannie Taylor claimed she had been assaulted in her home. At the time, her husband was away working. Taylor told neighbors she had been attacked by a Black man, though she never identified anyone from Rosewood, and no evidence ever connected a resident of the town to the accusation.

What followed was swift and deadly.

Word spread through Levy County, fueled by rumor and racial fear that had long simmered beneath the surface. A white mob formed, some of them deputized, others simply armed. They began searching for a man they believed responsible, focusing their attention on Rosewood, where most of the county’s Black families lived.

Within days, the mob moved in.

Homes were set on fire. Families fled into the surrounding woods, some hiding for days without food or shelter. One of the first victims was Sam Carter, a Black resident who was captured, tortured and killed after being accused of helping the alleged attacker escape. His body was left hanging as a warning.

The violence escalated on Jan. 4, when armed men surrounded the home of Sarah Carrier, a respected Rosewood resident whose house was sheltering women and children. Gunfire erupted. Carrier was killed, along with her son Sylvester, who had been defending the house. The mob then set the home ablaze.

By the time the fires burned out, Rosewood was destroyed.

Official records listed only a small number of deaths, but survivor testimony paints a darker picture. According to oral histories held by the University of Florida Special Collections, many victims were never counted. Bodies were buried hastily or left behind as families fled. Survivors escaped by train, wagon and on foot, helped at times by white neighbors who quietly intervened.

By Jan. 7, 1923, Rosewood was abandoned and its residents scattered across Florida and the country. Many never returned, others started over by changing  their names and adopting new identities. Most never spoke publicly about what happened, even to their own children. Silence became a means of survival.

Journalist Michael D. Orso documents in "Like Judgment Day: The Ruin and Redemption of a Town Called Rosewood," how fear followed survivors for decades. They feared retaliation, disbelief and the possibility that telling the truth would bring no justice, only pain.

For much of the 20th century, Florida did little to challenge that silence.

That changed in the 1980s, when historians, journalists and descendants brought renewed attention to Rosewood. Their work led to an unprecedented moment in state history. In 1994, after extensive testimony and archival review, the Florida Legislature formally acknowledged the state’s failure to protect its citizens and approved compensation for survivors and their descendants. It marked the first state-funded reparations program of its kind in the nation.

Though the decision recognized the injustice, it did not rebuild the town.

Today, Rosewood is remembered by a historical marker along a quiet road in Levy County. Trees stand where homes once did. There are no buildings left, no streets to walk, no church bells to ring. Only the memory of a place where people once lived full lives, until violence erased it.

According to the Florida Historical Society, Rosewood was not an isolated incident but part of a broader pattern of racial violence in early 20th century Florida, much of it ignored or excused at the time.

This week marks 102 years since Rosewood disappeared.

The official account of what happened in Rosewood is detailed in an investigative report prepared for the Florida Legislature and preserved by The Florida Bar.