Beaux Delaune

Date of Award

2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Hustwit, William

Area of Concentration

History with Museum Studies

Abstract

Located in Levy County, Florida, the town of Rosewood was destroyed in 1923 after an accusation of rape against an African American man by a white woman. After a brief window of reporting, all but Rosewood’s diaspora, principally African-American, and rural communities in Levy County forgot the story. In the 1980s a St. Petersburg Times story broke this “silence,” culminating in 1994 with a compensation bill for Rosewood’s survivors and descendants. The bill, House Bill 591, was the first act of reparations for an African-American community in the United States. This thesis is an analysis of the memory of the Rosewood Massacre from 1923 to 2024 as symbolic of Florida’s relationship to the past and state identity. In the 1920s, early coverage on the Rosewood Massacre was exaggerated and contradictory to disassociate the events from Florida’s identity and eschew northern scrutiny. In the 1990s, the rhetoric in the compensation bill framed Rosewood as an exceptional case due to conservative fear of starting a precedent for all victims of racial injustice to claim restitution. In the twenty-first century, efforts to preserve and promote Rosewood come primarily from grassroots historians who prioritize heritage as an educational tool. The past century has revealed a top-down resistance in Florida to continue addressing the story of Rosewood, and a dynamic reframing of the massacre within Rosewood’s diaspora to reclaim its narrative.

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