osewood Reborn recounts the Rosewood Florida massacre of 1923, when an alleged attack on a white woman became the excuse for six days of racial rioting, the destruction of this African American community, and the massacre of an unknown number of residents.

It began on New Years Day 1923, when a white woman claimed that a black man had attacked her. By the end of the day vengeful whites had lynched a man they suspected of helping the attacker escape. Local lawmen did nothing to stop them. By the week's end, hundreds of armed white men had burned black homes to the ground and forced the inhabitants to flee for their lives, killing many of them. All their property was then taken over by whites.

Rosewood's fate was an open secret for six decades. The terrorized survivors were silent, and the public quickly forgot.  But in 1992 two survivors of the massacre filed a claim against the state of Florida, and in 1994 the legislature finally awarded survivors and descendants $2 million – the only known case of reparations to black Americans in U.S. history.

Rosewood Reborn is a tale of violence, heroism, horror and yet hope, which connects living history with some of today's most pressing and controversial issues.  The conflicts and contradictions in American society that it illustrates remain unresolved.  The program is narrated by James Earl Jones, and uses participants' and witnesses' own voices to tell of the community's destruction, and the survivors' path-breaking struggle for justice.

Rosewood Reborn was funded by the Paul Robeson Fund for Independent Media and the Florida Humanities Council, with additional funding from Public Radio International.

PROGRAMS IN THIS SERIES How the South Won the War   Democracy's Denial: Revolutions in Wilmington   White Protestant Nation   Rosewood Reborn   American As Apple Pie   Media & Myths     Get Real Player

CLICK THE SOUND ICON TO LISTEN TO AN AUDIO EXCERPT       A burning cabin near Rosewood, Florida, January 4, 1923. Listen to an excerpt from the program