The Historical Problematics of Fannie Taylor

By Cayla McNally

28:53; 36:16; 41:35: in this collection of scenes, Fannie Taylor tells the lie that puts the tragic events of the story in motion. The actions surrounding her accusation, the “scream that starts the avalanche” (Ogidi 19), are intercut with scenes of the New Year’s revelry in the black community of Rosewood, creating dramatic irony that is palpable. When the viewer first sees Fannie Taylor, she is eschewing the affections of her husband, James. This leads the viewer to see Fannie as the typical chaste, prudish Southern belle; however, this perception is in stark juxtaposition to the next time she appears on-screen, engaging in rough sex with a man who is not her husband. She is drunk, and, after starting an argument, is savagely beat by her lover. Aware that she will need to explain her bruises to her husband, Fannie concocts a narrative in which an unknown black man breaks into her house and beats her. Smoothing her dress right before running out of her house screaming for help, Fannie makes it clear to the viewer that she is playing a role. One could suppose that Fannie lashes out at the only group that is more marginalized than she is, the only people lower than she is in the social hierarchy. The way she screams “nigger” echoes the way her lover repeatedly calls her “swamp tramp” as he kicks her. Fannie cries “nigger” knowing full well that no one would bother to check her story. No one would dream of checking to see if her house was actually broken into or look for any witnesses. Fannie’s words become the only proof needed, giving her a modicum of power. Her outburst is her way of becoming blameless for her sexual transgression, but by the end of the film she becomes the catalyst that kills scores of people and decimates a town.

Fannie’s role in the film fits snugly within the larger historical role that white woman played in lynchings. Though Fannie insists that she was not raped, her account gets more and more distorted as it is passes throughout the town. In what becomes the great irony of the film, the lynch mob forms as a way to revenge Fannie’s honor, which the reader knows to be self-compromised. In Legacies of Lynching, Jonathan Markovitz notes that “lynch mobs typically worked to ensure that black audiences were aware of the strength of white supremacy and the costs of violating the boundaries of the racial order; at the same time, they wanted to reinforce images of white men as chivalrous protectors of white women” (xvi). All too willing to cast herself in the role of the white woman in need of protection, Fannie seems acutely aware of what it will take to throw any doubters off her trail. To make herself appear smaller and more helpless, she compares herself against a juggernaut of an assailant, telling Ellis, “He was so big, he was so black, that boy.” By noting both the size and darkness of her attacker, Fannie is constructing a monster, a hypersexualized black fiction. Ellis, unsure of Fannie’s story, asks: “We’ve known each other a long time, huh? I want you to think about this . . . and tell me the truth, was it truly a colored that done this to you?” To which Fannie indignantly replies: “Yes he was colored! He was a nigger, nigger, nigger!” In this moment, Fannie does something interesting with semantics. Though Ellis, trying to maintain some semblance of reason, refers to her possible assailant as “colored,” Fannie exacerbates the hysteria by simultaneously raising her voice and repeating “nigger.” Ellis’s attempt to find logic within Fannie’s story is audibly drowned out by Fannie’s performance of escalating hysteria, but it is also morally drowned out. By switching the word “colored” with “nigger,” Fannie taps into the town’s preternatural fear of sexualized black men. As a result, every black man in Rosewood -- even ones who are well known in Sumner -- becomes a suspect. As a result, “despite having been told directly by Fannie Taylor that there had been no rape, the sheriff organizes a group of men to hunt down her rapist” (Markovitz 65). Fannie’s claim puts Ellis in a position where, socially and institutionally, he has to enact vengeance on any black body he can fine. He has an obvious disdain for all of the violence that occurs around him, but he stands to lose much more if he ignores Fannie’s accusation.

One of the most frustrating aspects of the scholarship surrounding the Rosewood massacre is the lack of historical consensus regarding Fannie Taylor. The various ways in which Fannie’s claims are portrayed are problematic. Netflix’s blurb on the film’s disk describes the Rosewood massacre as “a 1923 incident in which a white mob used a white woman’s false rape allegations as the motivation to destroy a peaceful, predominately black town.” This description effectively shifts the focus and blame from the mob to Fannie herself. Though Fannie’s accusations are reprehensible and carry grave and horrid repercussions, it seems unfair to place the onus entirely on her shoulders. Thomas Dye provides one of the more even-handed descriptions of the event, acknowledging that Fannie “claimed she was attacked by a black man in her home. Whether she was raped has never been determined, but most of the white residents in Levy County -- including her husband, James Taylor -- believed that she had been sexually assaulted and that an escaped convict, Jesse Hunter, was responsible” (611). Dye allows for historical doubt to seep into his description, because, in reality, the history that she inhabits is an oral history. There is no way to know for sure what happened to her that day in her home, and to proclaim one way or another with absolute certainty is to ignore the tenuous relationship between race, gender, and privilege in both the film and real life. It is impossible for the viewer to have a clear perception of Fannie when film critics and historians seem to be unable to reach an agreement on how to address the violence directed at her as well as the brutal violence that she causes.

A critical viewer must then ask what Singleton’s motives are in showing Fannie’s lover. Singleton himself seems to give her no sympathy, noting, “[T]he powder keg got lit when a white woman named Fanny [sic] Taylor, who was having an affair with another man, said she got beaten up by a black man, when in actuality it was her white lover” (Carr 95-96). We as readers have to ask ourselves why Singleton chose to show Fannie having sex with her lover, robbing her story of all ambiguity. He could have left out the scene of her beating, but he chose to include it, ostensibly in order to disprove her claim; however, he might be giving Fannie too much credence. To bolster the viewer’s opinion regarding the tragedy that occurs in the town, Singleton drags Fannie Taylor through the gutter, portraying her as a drunk, promiscuous “swamp tramp.” Within a film depicting the brutal effects of racism, Singleton relies on an equally as damaging trope of sexism and misogyny.

Raymond Arsenault suggests that the film’s treatment of masculinity, as channeled through Mann, demonstrates a “lack of respect for the historical record” (1174); I would argue that Singleton uses Fannie Taylor’s dishonesty as a way to bolster black masculinity in the film. Interestingly, the hypermasculine black male that Fannie creates to deflect attention from herself is the kind of black male that Singleton is praising. What, then, is the difference between Fannie constructing black masculinity and Singleton constructing it within the film? Critics have argued that Singleton’s creation of Mann compromises the historical accuracy of the film. I would go so far as to say that in the scope of the film, Singleton’s construction of a big, black stranger is as harmful to the narrative as Fannie’s is. These kinds of constructions eclipse the truth and steal focus from the real issues of the film.

So much surrounding the Rosewood massacres is still unknown. The death toll is unclear, and the existence of a mass grave is still hotly contested. So why does such certainty surround the assault of Fannie Taylor? To make these assumptions about Fannie Taylor is to get caught in a historical trap; in order to give voice to a marginalized group, must we ourselves marginalize another?