After reparations
How a scholarship helped — and didn't help — descendants of victims of the 1923 Rosewood racial massacre.
For the Washington Post - written by Robert Samuels and photo editing by Natalia Jimenez.
For generations, Oren Monroe's family has tried to figure out how to handle the story of their patriarch, a survivor of the Rosewood massacre. Three generations of his descendents, Morgan, her mother Natasha, and her grandmother Marie are seen here in front of their home in Riviera Beach, Florida.
This story started with a family reunion. A quick two-day assignment photographing a dinner, brunch, some ceremonies at the reunion of Rosewood descendents. I had never heard of Rosewood, although I knew racial violence is prevalent in Florida’s history and present. I quickly learned of the horrors of 1923 from the ancestors of the survivors, they told of a thriving rural black community, and how a white mob burned it to the ground.
The tales of horror are quickly followed by those of courage and strength. How their great grandparents escaped the violence by trudging through miles of swamps, some hiding in wells for days and finally boarding a train away from their smoldering homes.
“The survivors were from families that had visible symbols of wealth — two-story homes with organs and pianos — before the mob had burned it all down over six days. No law enforcement agency tried to rescue them. In a country where wealth is largely inherited, the families escaped with nothing.
As adults, they worked menial jobs: shining shoes, cleaning utensils, standing in factory lines. And in their life’s twilight, they still had nightmares about the fires they witnessed as children, just as other incidents of white mob violence — similar incidents happened in Wilmington, N.C.; Ocoee, Fla.; and Tulsa — haunted other black families.”
After years of generational trauma, a glimmer of hope. Activists, legislators and lobbyists came together in 1994 to pass the first ever case of legislated reparations to African-Americans.
An enormous feat accomplished by avoiding the topic of race entirely, by convincing Republican lawmakers that this was an issue of property loss and generational wealth - a strategy that brought over 9 Republicans to pass the bill.
Regardless of bipartisan support, the payment was much smaller than they expected. Originally they argued survivors should receive $1 million per family. In the end, the cash payments totaled $150,000 per survivor. Their descendents, the would-be recipients of the generational wealth lost in 1923, received scholarships.
Braelyn Denson, 3, a descendent of Rosewood survivors, at the Rosewood family reunion.
I submitted photos and expected that to be the end of the assignment, but I found myself still thinking about the Rosewood families. Their story seemed too powerful and unique to only be photographed inside of a conference room in a Holiday Inn.
I heard back from Natalia that they wanted to continue working on and photographing the story. So myself and Robert Samuels met in Tallahassee to spend time with some of the scholarship recipients at Florida A&M University, a historically black college.
Chandraha "CJ" Srinivasa Jr., Darshae Spells and Morgan Carter. Three Rosewood descendents attending the same university, living a few miles apart, on the same scholarship and totally unaware of each other’s existence.
We spent some time with them individually, interviewing and taking portraits. The school year had all but ended, so I photographed them studying or relaxing at their homes.
They all decided they wanted to meet each other, and allowed us to sit-in on the meeting. They awkwardly talked about classes and parties and ate fast food, a charmingly familiar college scene, before breaching the subject of Rosewood.
Each shared what they knew about their family’s history, their relationship with the tragedy and the 1997 Hollywood movie made about the massacre. Eventually, the topic of reperations was brought up.
“Reparations are cute, but I mean — this is probably just my opinion — but it’s not going to change anything,” Carter said. “We’ve been oppressed for too long for just a hot $10,000 to suddenly erase everything. We’ll just go through this money and then be back where we started, before the reparations were handed out.” - Morgan Carter.
Morgan’s knowledge of the history was vast and her views on reparations were well thought out and nuanced. Robert decided her family in Riviera Beach would be worth a visit, so we scheduled a trip there.
We arrived in Riviera Beach late on Thursday night and met Morgan’s mother and grandmother, Natasha and Marie. Marie spoke most of the night, showing us documents and pictures her father, Oren Monroe, who escaped the massacre at Rosewood.
It was this evening that I realized the difficulty in photographing the story of Rosewood. The roots of the 1923 massacre are buried across the entire state, but the physicality of their stories is lost in time. Even the pillars still standing were hard to photograph - wealth, education, ancestral institutions.
I decided to focus on portraits of the descendents, paired with scenes and details of historical significance. It felt like the best way to illustrate the relationships between generational trauma and the geographically sprawling veins of tragedy. This is a personal edit of outtakes and favorite photos, for the Washington Post presentation and the incredible story by Robert Samuels, click here.
Marie took me to the town’s black cemetery, Sugarhill, where many of her relatives are buried. It was a gloomy, steamy day, and as she showed me the second marker it started pouring rain and we fled to the car. I came back later to photograph the landscape without her.
Sugarhill Cemetery, formerly known as Kelsey City Coloured Cemetery.
The white painted brick of FAMU’s original Black Archives building meets the brick exterior of its extension.
The uniform of Army Colonel, Ronald Joe is seen in the Black Archives building on FAMU’s campus.
A photo of Oren Monroe, a Rosewood survivor.
Morgan Carter, Oren’s great-granddaughter, before church.
Natasha, Morgan’s mother, struggles to remember stories of her grandfather Oren Monroe.
Marie flips through “Like Judgment Day,” a book about the Rosewood massacre.
Family members embrace as they set up for the Rosewood Family Reunion at the Holiday Inn.
Rosewood descendents tie knots in a red ribbon, signifying the bond between families in one of their traditional family reunion ceremonies.
The final leg of this story was a trip to Rosewood itself - or what remained of it.
The once thriving town is still almost completely undeveloped. The families never moved back, their businesses never reopened. The only original structure still standing is the Wright House, home to a white family that hid fleeing black families as the violence ensued. Children hid in a well on the property until the mob subsided, some took to the swamps and traveled for days before hopping a train to their future homes.
Thick swampland still covers much of Rosewood, and a highway bisects the town on the way to Cedar Key, a popular tourist destination. Most families driving to enjoy the beach have no idea the history they pass on the way.
I arrived to Rosewood on New Year’s Day for the first “Rosewood Day” celebration. Despite meeting dozens of Rosewood descendents, I knew nobody here - a testament to how far the families have spread.
A prayer, a candlelight vigil and words from local community leaders. Dozens of people came to pay respects, but mostly just to absorb the tragic weight of the land around them.
The Wright House.
As I drove around the remnants of Rosewood, I stumbled upon a wild pig that had drowned in the swamp. The same swamps that young children trudged through in 1923. I found it especially haunting, knowing that any of those children fleeing Rosewood could have suffered the same fate, if not a worse one.
Reading the story, one line from Robert Samuels stuck out to me in particular:
What can a scholarship do to address a historic injustice? For Carter and her family, reparations changed the frame of a tortured past. The Rosewood story no longer ends with a scared boy running through the woods; it continues with graduation robes and diplomas, potentially the family’s first doctorate.
I’m feeling very proud to have worked on this story, and humbled by it’s difficulty and depth. I’m incredibly grateful to the Rosewood families who allowed us into their lives, especially Marie, Natasha and Morgan.
