Florida Will Pay Black Survivors of White-Mob Rampage in Town

The Legislature agreed Friday to pay up to $150,000 each to survivors of a weeklong rampage by a white mob that wiped out the black town of Rosewood 71 years ago.

The money is part of a $2.1-million claims bill the Senate sent to Gov. Lawton Chiles, who said he will sign it into law.

During hearings last month, survivors and witnesses told the story of how whites rampaged through the community of about 120 people after failing to find a black man accused of assaulting a white woman on New Year’s Day 1923.

At least eight people died and nearly every house and building in the Gulf Coast community was burned. At least four people who fled the violence as children have been identified.

“There is justice, even in this country,” said Wilson Hall, 79. He was 8 years old when his family fled Rosewood and said he felt the state finally has apologized after years of ignoring the destruction.

The bill, approved earlier by the House, establishes a $1.5-million fund to pay anyone up to $150,000 if they can prove they lived in Rosewood and were evacuated during the violence. The state attorney general’s office will determine individual amounts.