Remembering the Rosewood Massacre Through the Eyes of Survivors [VIDEO]

100 years ago today a racist white mob went through the predominantly Black town of Rosewood in Florida and massacred countless people after a white woman falsely claimed she was raped. Over a period of 7 days, the terrorist mob killed anyone in sight and burned the city to the ground. All survivors permanently fled the city. No one in the racist mob was ever held accountable. Descendants of the survivors won reparations in the form of scholarships and $2.1 million in compensation (a fraction of what was owed) more than 70 years later. To this day it remains the only case of reparations ever paid to Black victims of racist terror in the United States.

The following is a special report on CBS’s 60 Minutes from Ed Bradley that aired on December 11, 1983 in which survivors of this brutal massacre tell of the horrors and destruction they bore witness to.

The Rosewood massacre was one of many anti-Black massacres across the United States. The following map from the Decolonial Atlas shows some of the documented massacres:

Further reading:

Rosewood Remembered: Centennial of racist massacre that destroyed a Black Florida town spotlights racial injustice past and present

Rosewood, Florida, marks 100 years since race massacre. Here’s what happened

After Reparations: How a scholarship helped — and didn’t help — descendants of victims of the 1923 Rosewood racial massacre.

How History Forgot Rosewood, a Black Town Razed by a White Mob