On January 1, 1923, a massacre was carried out in Rosewood, a small predominantly Black town in Central Florida, after a rumor spread that a white woman, Fanny Taylor, had been sexually assaulted by a black man in her home in a nearby community. A group of White men, believing the assailant was a recently escaped convict named Jesse Hunter who was hiding in Rosewood, assembled to capture him. Racial tensions had already been stirred by the murder of a white school teacher from Perry during the previous winter of 1922 and by a Ku Klux Klan rally held in Gainesville on New Year’s Eve of 1922. On January 4, 1923, a group of 20 to 30 White men approached the Carrier home and shot the family dog. When Sylvester Carrier’s mother Sarah came to the porch to confront the mob, they shot and killed her. Sylvester defended his home, killing two men and wounding four before he was killed. The remaining survivors fled to the swamps for refuge, where many African American residents of Rosewood had already retreated in hopes of avoiding the rising conflict and increasing racial tension. On January 6, many Black residents who had fled to the swamps were evacuated by two local train conductors, John and William Bryce, and many others were hidden by John Wright, the owner of the general store. An initial report presented less than a month after the massacre claimed there was insufficient evidence for prosecution, and no one was charged with any of the Rosewood murders. In 1994, new evidence and renewed interest in the event led the Florida Legislature to pass the Rosewood Bill, entitling nine survivors to $150,000 dollars each in compensation.