The book Like Judgment Day by Michael D'Orso tells a story important in Florida history, a story that was long suppressed but that has recently emerged as one of the worst instances of racial violence in this century. Rosewood was just one of the many racial incidents that took place in the South after World War I, but it remains notable because of the enormity of what occurred there and because of the way white society covered up the truth for decades only to have the story revived by a newspaper story.
The difficulties of blacks in the South after the Civil War are well known, and so is the mass exodus of many blacks to the North during these years, seeking opportunity and safer social setting. This trend continued well into this century, and incidents like that in Rosewood only gave added reasons for blacks to leave the region if possible World War I was a war meant to "end all wars" and to achieve a brotherhood of man, but this idea was not extended to many blacks in American life. There was considerable racial unrest and violence against African Americans in the United States during the post World War I era, from individual lynchings to massive violence against entire black communities. In many communities, white mobs followed a reign of terror against African Americans during the period from 1917 to 1923.
The riot in 1923 began with a report by a local white woman, Fanny Taylor, that a black male had come to her home that morning and tried to rape her, beating her about the head and face. There are numerous versions of what happened that morning, with so many embellishments that it is now difficult to say whether anything took place at all. The assault was supposedly chased off by neighbors, after which the white community rallied in anger and decided to punish every black person in the area. At least, that is what they tried to do. According to one woman who was there at the time, though, it was a white man wh...