Video: 'Rosewood Massacre Survivors and Eye-witness Testimonies (1983)'

(Monday, January 1, 1923; during the Rosewood Massacre, part of the nadir of American race relations) — The Rosewood Massacre began today when racial violence erupted in Rosewood, Florida, after a white woman accused a black man of assaulting her.

Before the massacre, the town of Rosewood had been a quiet, primarily black, self-sufficient whistle-stop on the Seaboard Air Line Railway.

Trouble began when white men from several nearby towns lynched a black Rosewood resident because of accusations that a white woman in nearby Sumner had been assaulted by a black drifter.

Video: 'Rosewood, Fla., Destroyed by White Mob'

A mob of several hundred whites combed the countryside hunting for black people and burned almost every structure in Rosewood.

For several days, survivors from the town hid in nearby swamps until they were evacuated to larger towns by train and car.

At least six black people and two white people were killed, though eyewitness accounts suggested a higher death toll of 27 to 150.

No arrests were made for what happened in Rosewood. The town was abandoned by its former black and white residents; none of them ever moved back, none of them were ever compensated for the loss of their land, and the town ceased to exist.