Rosewood Massacre The Rosewood massacre was a racially motivated attack on African Americans and their neighborhood committed by a white mob in Florida during January 1–7, 1923. At least six African Americans and two whites were killed in the ensuing violence. The town of rosewood, which was a majority-black community, was abandoned and destroyed during the race riot. Before the massacre, Rosewood was a quiet town. Trouble began when white men from several nearby towns lynched a Rosewood resident because of unsupported accusations that a white woman in sumner had been beaten and possibly raped by a black drifter. African-American citizens rallied together to defend themselves against further attacks, a mob of several hundred whites formed in reaction and started bombing the countryside hunting down black people, and they attacked and destroyed the community, burning almost every structure within Rosewood. -Although the rioting was widely reported around the United States at the time, few official records documented the event -Everyone remained silent about Rosewood survivors, their descendants, and the perpetrators remained silent for decades. -Journalist Gary Moore's EXPOSE in a Florida magazine of the st. PETERSBURG times on July 25, 1982. The article reported on the 1923 events and explored the intense cultural denial of the event. Academic bodies in Florida avoided examining or certifying the many witnesses who by then had been located. -Between 1985 and 1986, survivors and descendants of the massacre began to form a network called the Rosewood Family Reunion. The group, was organized by Annie Belle Lee in Lacoochee, Florida, eventually filed the Rosewood Claims Case in the Florida Legislature in 1992. It sued the state for having failed in 1923 to protect Rosewood's African-American community