The Rosewood massacre of 1923 has been in the public eye recently, but not the correct history, said Liz Jenkins in a speech at the Matheson Historical Center Sunday. Jenkins, a retired Alachua County schoolteacher, decided to write a detailed history of the massacre of the predominantly African-American town in 1923 using the personal reflections of her aunt and a lifetime of oral history.
Rosewood lies southwest of Gainesville.
We should share our history, no matter how ugly. Jenkins' book, I, too, Lived Rosewood , due out later this year, describes the history of the town and her aunt, Mahilda Carrier, one of the few survivors. The events of January 1923 were told to Jenkins by her mother, who is now 94. Jenkins decided to begin writing a year ago. She said several errors existed in the movie, such as a mass grave, and the untruthful portrayal of men such as Jim Wright, a store owner who helped, not hurt, many of blacks involved in the massacre.