Racial violence devastated Rosewood, Florida, from January 1-7, 1923, ending the quiet life of a predominantly colored community whose residents included the Bradley, Carrier, Carter, Goins, and Hall families and who supported a school taught by Mahulda “Gussie” Brown Carrier, three churches, and a Masonic lodge. Many residents owned their homes, some operated businesses, and others worked in nearby Sumner and at the Cummer Lumber Mill. After a white Sumner woman accused a black man of assaulting her on January 1, 1923, whites searching for the alleged attacker terrorized and killed Rosewood residents. As fear and violence spread, many people fled into the nearby woods, while white merchant John M. Wright and other whites sheltered some of the escaping men, women and children. Whites burned Rosewood and looted livestock and property, and two whites were killed while attacking a home. Five blacks were also killed: Sam Carter, who was tortured for information and shot to death on January 1, Sarah Carrier, Lexie Gordon, James Carrier, and Mingo Williams. Survivors were left deeply scarred, took a vow of silence, lived in fear, and never returned to claim their property. That silence ended seventy-one years later when survivors including Minnie Lee Langley, Arnett Turner Goins, and Wilson Hall filed a claims bill in the Florida Legislature in 1994. A Special Master ruled that the state had a moral obligation to compensate survivors for loss of property, violation of constitutional rights, and mental anguish. On May 4, 1994, Governor Lawton Chiles signed a $2.1 million compensation bill, granting nine survivors $150,000 each for mental anguish, creating a state university scholarship fund for Rosewood families and their descendants, and establishing a fund for families who could demonstrate property loss.