Rosewood

Jet, March 24, 1997

Famed director John Singleton says his latest film Rosewood is "one of the most worthwhile ventures I have ever embarked on."

Rosewood, which is based on a true story, tells the story of how a Black town by the same name was senselessly destroyed by a White mob in 1923.

Rosewood, a flourishing Black town in central Florida, has residents who are much more prosperous than the Whites in the neighboring run-down town of Sumner. But a lie by a White woman ignites a racist flame in Sumner that leads to the horrifying demise of Rosewood and reduces it to charred remains in a matter of days.

However, in the midst of this madness an unlikely alliance that leads many women and children from the swamps to safety is formed by a Black newcomer to town (Ving Rhames) and the lone White Rosewood storekeeper (Jon Voight).

The gripping tale, which is receiving rave reviews, also stars veteran actress Esther Rolle, noted actor Don Cheadle, Elise Neal, Michael Rooker and Catherine Kellner.

"Rosewood seemed like a ripe subject to paint a very provocative portrait of the America people rarely want to talk about," recalls Singleton. "Ours is a morbid history; most try to evade it. Black people don't want to remember being the victims of lynching, rape, the separation of families, living under Jim Crow and all the horrors those things entailed. And White folks don't want to remember being the perpetrators of that kind of persecution."

The beginning of the end for Rosewood began when a promiscuous Sumner woman named Fanny Taylor (Kellner) is brutally beaten by her White lover. In order to keep her infidelity from her husband, she concocts a false story and staggers into the street, screaming to the town's people about how she has suffered her bruises at the hands of a Black man. She does this even though there are two witnesses to what happened, one of whom is Carrier family matriarch Sarah (Rolle).

"Everybody knew who Fanny Taylor was--she was a tramp," comments Rolle, star of the former hit TV show "Good Times". "Sarah worked for her and saw her get beaten by her White lover; in fact, she helped wash Fanny up from her wounds. But Fanny knew that Sarah wouldn't say anything. So all of these nobodies in Sumner got together to protect a tramp of a woman."

Sheriff Walker (Rooker) rounds up area men, who are armed with bloodhounds, nooses for lynching, guns and alcohol, and starts the search for the nameless Black face Fanny has accused, who naturally is never found.

Rosewood surprisingly gets a hero when a newcomer to town, Mann (Rhames), decides to help his newfound friends to defend themselves. A World War I veteran, he wanders into Rosewood with thoughts of building a home and settling down. He leaves when he sees the war that is beginning to brew. But "something draws him back, and he does what he has to do as a man, as a soldier, as a human being, to help save the town," Rhames notes about Mann. He is also drawn back by his newfound love, Sylvester's 17-year-old cousin affectionately called Scrapple (Neal). Rhames, who gained notoriety in the film Pulp Fiction, added that he chose to do Rosewood because it is "historical. I also liked the fact that you don't really see this type of character that often in the person of an African-American male."

He finds an unlikely ally in John Wright (Voight), the White storekeeper whose loyalties are torn between his race and his neighbors in Rosewood who are his primary customers. Together they help numerous women and children avoid certain death.

The out-of-control gang goes on a violent rampage, killing anyone in its path who does not give them the information they want. The mob's tear eventually leads them to the Carrier home.

Believing the escaped convict is hidden in the home by Sylvester Carrier (Cheadle), a proud Black man who chose not to flee from the Whites and to defend his home, the mob beckons him to come out.

Sarah, who is his mother, goes outside instead and tries to reason with the hate-filled group of White men. While she tries to tell the truth about who really assaulted Fanny, the mob shoots the innocent woman.

Extremely shaken and angered by what has happened to his mother, Sylvester begins to exchange gunfire with the mob. Everything changes for the worse when he shoots and kills two White men when they storm his front door in an effort to get him out of the house.

"It's funny, whenever a Black man from that period stood up and fought back, he was considered crazy," says Cheadle, who gained attention in the film Devil In A Blue Dress. "It wasn't that he was a man of honor and believed in justice and thought that there was no color line--he was thought of as being crazy. But the way I'm trying to portray the character is that he's just very straightforward and honest."

As the White mob members retreat to gather themselves, the women and children run into the woods and swamp area to hide where later Mann finds them and joins with Wright to lead them to safety.

The mob continues its rampage through Rosewood and leaves virtually all buildings burned. The residents who are not murdered are forced from their homes never to return.