The Portrayal of Economic Tension in Rosewood

By Jae Yong Shim

[1] Rosewood, a film directed by John Singleton, is based on the true story of the Rosewood massacre, a racial disturbance that took place in Rosewood, Florida, in 1923. The brutal incident destroyed Rosewood, a black community, and killed many African Americans and two white men. Historians have examined such racial disturbances, including the one at Rosewood, and, attribute them to variety of factors, one being economic competition between the races. Singleton has said that “the racism in that incident had an economic basis. At the time, a lot of people migrated to the area -- whites, blacks, Hispanics. They were vying for employment in the lumber and turpentine business. You had a whole lot of economic tension" (Carr). Hence, Singleton recognizes an economic aspect as one of reasons that triggered the massacre.

[2] How does Singleton portray the economic tension in Rosewood? Through the film, the director claims that the economic class structure was changing in the 1920s. In the 1920s, it is hard to say that full equality was achieved by the blacks. Economically, whites own most of resources and businesses. In short, the whites had economic supremacy. Despite this supremacy, it can not be overlooked that the blacks were rising slowly in economic terms. Therefore, the transition implies a clash between the conventional economic class structure dominated by the white and the effort of the blacks to catch new opportunities.

[3] Employer-employee relationships of the whites and blacks demonstrate the conventional economic order. In Rosewood, the employers are the whites, whereas the employees are the blacks. In the film, the lumber business, which was a primary industry in Florida, is owned by the whites, and many black men were working in the lumber mill. Moreover, when Fannie Taylor is assaulted by her lover, Aunt Sarah is working at Taylor's house, which was in Sumner, a white community. Also, Aunt Sarah cleans up the mess in the Taylor house after the assault. Thereby, it is assumed that Aunt Sarah is employed by the white community. Lastly, John Wright, the only white man in Rosewood, owner of a general store, hires Sylvester Carrier's sister as a clerk. All these relationships illustrate the economic hierarchy between races.

[4] Certainly, Rosewood and Sumner were communities in which the whites had economic advantages in the sense that the whites control businesses and resources. Nevertheless, the traditional economic order was breaking down from the bottom, and Singleton reflects those changes in the economic elevation of African Americans. Simply putting these two contradictory ideas together, before the 20th century, the blacks were not competitors of even lower class whites, yet, after 20th century begins, these whites without financial resources had to compete for jobs with the blacks. In other words, African Americans had some degree of economic opportunities in the 20th century. And Rosewood residents are described as taking advantage of these opportunities according to the general description of the movie and the massacre. Robert Cottrol, for instance, says, "The black folk of Rosewood had managed to carve out a relative measure of prosperity and contentment by the early 1920s, but that was all destroyed in the rampage of January 1923."

[5] A significant scene that indicates the transformation of this economic order displays white men demeaning Sylvester Carrier having a piano and teaching music. Carrier, a main character, is presented as a music teacher, and, in the beginning of the film there are a few scenes that show Sylvester playing a piano. Even when the Carrier home is attacked, Sylvester is playing a piano for his son's birthday. Obviously, a piano is a luxury good; the white men are incensed by the fact that Carrier owns a piano which they can not afford. Therefore, the piano symbolizes the economic overturn.

[6] There is another crucial scene symbolically analogous to this one with the piano. In the auction scene, there are a number of white men bidding for five acres of a black man's land. During the auction, Mr. Mann, a World War I veteran, comes in and keeps outbidding the white men, including John Wright. White men doubt Mann has enough money, yet Mann confidently bids higher prices to obtain the property. Indeed, Mann has more economic power than white men, symbolizing the overturned economic class lines between the races.

[7] So, how did the transformation of the economic class structure lead to tension between the races? As manifested above, the traditional economic class structure was collapsing. In the course of every transition, some are willing to accept changes and adapt themselves while some others are not. In early 1900s, it would be extremely difficult for some white people to accept the fact that a few African Americans were doing better than they. Singleton describes the situation: "And so you're sitting on a powder keg. You had a lot of whites thinking, 'Well, if I'm not better than the nigger, what am I better than?'" Certainly, there is a difference between the reality and the ideal -- white men think they should be doing better than the blacks, but they are not doing as well as some of black men. This disparity upsets white men, and when they find a motivation to attack Rosewood, they do so without any hesitation.

[8] In conclusion, the violent racial rampage is a result of the economic transition. Transition is a process of change, and so two contrary values or systems coexist. In the 1920s, whites were still controlling the resources and businesses. However, other white people who did not own any had to compete with colored people. Competition was unavoidable but unacceptable to white people, leading them to have feelings of hatred and repulsion toward black people, and eventually they became a lynch mob. Mirroring the massacre that happened seventy years ago in his film, Singleton had to regard economic factors as one of triggers and set up an economic background contrary to the common misunderstanding that the whites were totally dominant in terms of the wealth in the 1920s.