The Real Rosewood

Courtesy of the Gainesville Sun

The small town of Rosewood was forever changed one night in 1923.

My ancestry goes a long way back in both Levy County and Alachua County. For the past 15 years I have worked unceasingly to document and present our shared history of Rosewood.

“You must keep the ‘leg’ in our legacy,” instructed my once enslaved great grandmother, Lizzie Polly, the family’s matriarch and “once upon a time” storyteller who migrated to Archer in 1839 from Jackson, Mississippi, at age 13.

Born into a family of transgenerational historians and storytellers, it was my destiny to become a fifth generation storyteller and historian. My mother named me Lizzie Polly (Robinson) after my great grandmother. I am a direct descendant of Rosewood, the predominantly black Levy County township that was destroyed in a week-long rampage of racial violence in 1923. I was first initiated into the story of Rosewood in 1943, at age 5. As a youngster, I took Rosewood memories to bed with me each night and to school with me each day. I would carry them with me to work, college and church. I was groomed to keep our history accurate and relevant.

My parents, Ura and Theresa Robinson, taught their children that “knowledge is power” and that education is essential. My mother, keeper of our oral history, told me that an aspect of my life’s mission was to research and share the true history of the Rosewood massacre; to be a voice for justice for the survivors and descendants, both black and white. I was to serve as a bridge for healing racial wounds in our culture.

She told me: “When you tell Rosewood’s story, remain open-minded and don’t allow your personal feelings to take control over truth, making certain Mahulda (her sister) has her place in Rosewood’s history.” She perceived that I would meet and embrace white Rosewood descendants as well, taking history to the next level.

On New Years Day, 1923, Rosewood would be forever changed by racism. My aunt, the Rosewood school teacher, and other survivors say a white woman living in nearby Sumner falsely accused my uncle, a Rosewood resident, of attacking her. A mob came to the small town, burning homes, looting property, and killing five black members of the community. However, had it not been for the white unsung heroes (who will be honored at our upcoming awards dinner on Saturday), the Rosewood citizens would not have survived.

Many miles I have traveled in search of the truth, facing bigotry and intimidation tactics intended to thwart the accurate investigation and documentation of this thread in our national heritage.

I received the NAACP Pioneer Award in honor of my ancestors. I worked for the erection of a state historic marker in Rosewood, which was begun by Gov. Lawton Chiles and completed by Gov. Jeb Bush.

“This marker will ensure that Rosewood is remembered and that when the voice of the last survivor is stilled, we will all bear witness to what happened here and learn the lessons of its legacy,” said Gov. Bush.

In 2005 we held the first annual Rosewood Awards Dinner in memory of all Rosewood survivors and descendants. The Second Annual Rosewood Awards Dinner will be held on March 11 at the Paramount Plaza Hotels and Suites, 2900 SW 13th St., in Gainesville. For information about the event, e-mail me at lizzieprj@aol.com. or call (352) 495-2197.

Ronald Blocker, superintendent of the Orange County School System and a Rosewood descendant, will be our keynote speaker. Dr. James M. Davidson and doctoral student Edward Tennant, of the University of Florida Department of Anthropology, are assisting in the process of remembering Rosewood through archival research and a potential archaeological investigation of the former town site.

At the March 11 dinner they will make a presentation of their findings. At the request of my 91-year-old uncle, my next goal is to build a Brown Connection Center on a stunning 29-acre Archer property that we own jointly - the homestead of the Rosewood schoolteacher. The center will honor the memory of innocent men, women and children who suffered or died in the Rosewood massacre.

During Black History Month this year, I escorted students from Jordan Glen School, Job Corp, SIATech, and Mt. Pleasant United Methodist Church to Rosewood. I shared the Rosewood story with students at the PACE school for girls, Oak Hall High School and Santa Fe Community College.

Students from Job Corp were so intrigued with the all-white Shiloh Cemetery in Sumner, where Rosewood Store Merchant John Wright is buried, they volunteered to adopt his gravesite and put a state-of-the-art headstone in place.

My parents, especially my mother, strongly influenced me never to vent anger when telling the Rosewood story. For unless we remember, our children will not understand. When we preserve Rosewood’s history, we preserve America’s history.

Lizzie R. Jenkins is President of The Real Rosewood Foundation, Inc., in Archer. She can be contacted at lizzieprj@aol.com. or at 352-495-2197.

81 years later, Rosewood memorialized

BY KAREN VOYLES

SUN STAFF WRITER

KAREN VOYLES/The Gainesville Sun

Robie Mortin, right, was 8 years old when her family fled from Rosewood in 1923, a day before the predominantly black town was demolished by an angry white mob. Martin and Rosewood descendant Janie Black, left, were among those honored Thursday during a ceremony near the site where the town stood.

OSEWOOD - The first memorial service was held Thursday for those who died or had their lives irretrievably altered by the horrific racial incident that began on Jan. 1, 1923.

This week’s peace and healing ceremony was planned by descendants of black families who lived in Rosewood before the town was decimated by an angry white mob.

“This is the dawn of a new day for Rosewood,” the Rev. Avon Witherspoon said in her invocation.

She reminded the crowd of more than 100 that gathered at the community ballpark south of the original town site that the purpose of the ceremony was to “bring peace, healing and restoration.”

The ceremony was described by organizer Lizzie Jenkins of Archer as a tribute to the ancestors who once lived in the town and worked at the nearby turpentine mill or for white families who lived in the area. She told the crowd that the ceremony was important because “preserving Rosewood’s history is preserving America’s history.”

The history of the atrocities at Rosewood was documented by the 1994 Florida Legislature, which paid out $2 million in compensation to survivors and the descendants.

The violence began after a white woman accused a black man of raping her. The accusation - which was never proven - set off the violence that did not end until several black residents had been murdered and the nearly 50-year-old town was burned to the ground, with the exception of one home that remains standing today.

Within hours of the woman’s accusation and the onset of the violence, surviving residents fled into the surrounding woods, taking nothing but the clothes they were wearing. Efforts to get the governor or president involved in calming the situation were ignored and it was left up to the Levy County sheriff and a handful of other local white men to help arrange to get the black residents out of the area. Many were picked up by a train and taken to other family members in other parts of the state.

Robie Mortin, now 89 years old, was just 8 when her father whisked her and an older sister out of town at the first indication of trouble.

“I never did think I would live to see a day like this,” Mortin said Thursday as she participated in the service. “My dad got us out on a train the day before most of the others got out and we were all the way to Chiefland before we heard about the hanging.”

White men, convinced that Rosewood blacksmith Sam Carter had helped a rapist escape, tortured Carter, then shot him, hanged him and butchered his remains, according to the history documented by the Legislature.

Those who could escape into the surrounding swamps did so, some waiting in freezing water until they could be summoned to a train that hauled them to safety. The torching of the homes left only one standing, which can be seen today alongside State Road 24.

For decades, Rosewood atrocities were only whispered about. Much of what had happened there was documented by oral family histories that began being publicized in the early 1980s.

Robert Thompson, a 72-year-old black man and lifelong residents of nearby Chiefland, said he had heard the stories all his life, and was at the ceremony Thursday to listen to others.

“We are here to respect the ones that died and all of them that lived through it,” Thompson said.

Jenkins said her goal is to one day have a monument erected in the Rosewood area so that no one ever forgets what happened there.

Karen Voyles can be reached at (352) 486-5058 or voylesk@ gvillesun.com.