It’s all very distressing and the injustice of what happened in Rosewood is, at times, unbearable because it is based on a true story. There are some heartbreaking subplots but mostly the story hinges on a little white lie, so to speak.
The angry mob destroys nearly every building, house, and structure in the town. The white men proceed to lose their minds, surrender to a mob mentality and create a lot of havoc, lynching an innocent black man and tormenting the townsfolk of Rosewood. With no other way to explain the marks on her body to her husband, she cries rape and when the townsmen ask her who has done this terrible thing, the white woman, predictably, shrieks, “It was a nigger,” her voice pitched in a way that makes your skin crawl. A married white woman in nearby Summer, having an affair, is beaten by her white lover.
Rosewood, is a movie set in 1923, and tells the story of Rosewood, a deeply segregated, primarily black town in Florida. When my brothers and I have a particularly frustrating day rife with racial insensitivity, we’ll call and say, “Today is a Rosewood day.” Nothing more needs to be said.
