About Rosewood Massacre
The Rosewood Massacre was a racially motivated attack on the Black town of Rosewood, Florida, in January 1923. Over the course of a week, white mobs burned homes and churches, and killed several Black residents after a false accusation against a Black man. The violence forced the entire Black population to flee, and the town was left in ruins. The incident was covered up for decades and is now recognized as a tragic example of racial injustice in U.S. history.
These powerful images from the Rosewood Massacre offer a stark visual record of the violence inflicted upon the Black community in 1923. In one set of photographs, we see a family home before and after it was burned to the ground—once a place of safety, reduced to ash and ruin. Another haunting image captures the brutal lynching of a Black man, a chilling reminder of the racial terror that marked this tragedy. Together, these images tell a painful yet necessary story of loss and injustice. To better understand the setting and scale of the events that unfolded, continue to the next section featuring geographic maps pinpointing the exact location of Rosewood and its surrounding areas.