Woman tells tragic story of relatives’ Rosewood ordeal

By Chantrell Bruton
Contributing Writer

Devastation, death and silence.For more than 50 years, Lizzie Polly Robinson Jenkins kept silent about those aspects of her family’s history.

But as she led a tour of six students and two UF employees Saturday afternoon, Jenkins, 60, openly told the story of her family’s experiences in the town of Rosewood.

As a bus carried the group to the city about an hour outside of Gainesville, Jenkins told stories and sung songs about her aunt’s experiences.

Jenkins was only three years old when her mother sat she and her three siblings down to tell them about the 1923 tragedy involving their aunt Mahulda Gussie Brown Carrier, who had lived in Rosewood since 1917, and uncle Aaron Carrier.

“I was too little to understand everything she was saying, but it sounded so sad,” she said.

It was more than 75 years ago that the alleged rape of a white woman by a black man led to the uproar that would destroy the small Levy County town.

During the riots, Jenkins’ uncle was beaten, dragged and sent to jail.

As the bus passed the small, green highway marker that read “Rosewood,” Jenkins pointed out the one remaining house - John Wright’s house.

Wright was a merchant in Rosewood and one of the only white residents. During the riots, Wright let some black people hide in his house. Jenkins’ aunt was one of those people.

The wooden-frame, two-story house was built around 1871 and now is owned by John Doyle and his wife. Doyle has no family relationship to Wright and did not know the historical background of his home when he bought it in about 1979.

“I didn’t start learning about it until around 1983, when the show “60 Minutes” came out and did a segment,” he said.

After the broadcast, Rosewood survivors and descendents started coming to Doyle’s home, he said.

Much of the original architecture is the same, but there have been some renovations over the years.

Jenkins, author of “The Real Rosewood,” was overwhelmed with emotion the first time she went into the house.

“It was Feb. 8, 1997, and when I asked Doyle if I could come in, and he said, ‘Yes.’ I couldn’t believe it,” Jenkins said. “I was trying to drink a cup of coffee, but all I could do was think of my aunt, and I started shaking.”

The group also went to Shiloh Cemetery, where Wright and his family were buried, and Archer, where the people who escaped the riots by train were once dropped off.

Jenkins said she shares her Rosewood story through books and tours “in hopes of teaching people and making them aware so something like this doesn’t happen again.”

UF junior Brian Hayes knew nothing about Rosewood before the trip, sponsored by Students Taking Action Against Racism.

“I was mainly curious,” Hayes said. “I don’t know a lot about Gainesville, but I decided I am here so I should take advantage of the opportunity to learn more.”

Another trip led by Jenkins is being planned for February as part of Black History Month.

“The flame still burns,” Jenkins said. “As long as I am alive, the memory will be kept alive in my soul.”