The trees cast long shadows across the patch of scrub where the survivors crouched. The littlest children were huddled inside the circle of older family members around them, each one holding on to at least one child. In the dark shadows of the moonlit night none of them could be seen. Only faint noises could be heard from them as they whispered, sounds that drifted up and away and floated off, fading soon into the silence under the trees. Through the hours of darkness they huddled, fearful as they waited for whatever next would pass.
Noises from the direction of home drifted across the hammock. First there were gunshots, a few followed by screams. Cows and horses were bellowing, men were shouting back and forth. A loud explosion was followed by a metallic sounding crash.
“Kerosene tank," Roy guessed, and Daniel nodded.
A new sound began, the sound of things breaking, broken glass and shrieking metal, broken wood and smashing furniture. Then came the terrible noise of the piano, being struck with something hard over and over. Rose cried out when she heard dishes breaking, huge crashes of plates and glassware falling. Someone was pulling over the cabinets that held Sara’s china and crystal, smashing the glass front doors, pulling out the shelves and trays in the pantry, pulling them out and hurling them to the floor.
The noise of destruction continued off and on through the few hours left before dawn. Daniel and Roy kept watch as the others tried to comfort the children and tend to their hurts. The littler children drifted off to sleep first; soon most of the others slept.
Rose dozed off for a few moments, but jerked back awake at the next loud bang drifting through the trees. Daniel was crouched at her side and steadied her as she woke. Queen wrapped her back in the quilt they shared and pulled her close.
“I can see you better now,” Queen whispered. “Sun will be up soon.”
Rose looked around in the first light of day. The sun was still below the horizon but she could see everyone clearly, no longer colored dim and vague by the cold moonlight.
The group was huddled in a large patch of scrub oak and sabal palm, half buried in the humus and leaves under the trees. Everyone was shivering, and everyone was injured. Emma had been shot through the hand; Roy had two holes where bullets had passed through his upper arm and his side. Broken glass had cut everyone, flying from shot out windows and into skin, slashing feet as they fled, leaving dots of blood scattered across their skin and their clothes.
Minnie Lee’s brother Ruben was terribly hurt; a piece of glass had pierced his left eye during the shooting. Scrappy had bravely removed the glass and wrapped his face in a strip of her nightgown, but he was gray from shock and shaking uncontrollably from the cold.
“These babies need to get in somewhere,” Gussie whispered.
“Maybe we can go home soon,” Marlene said. She was holding Mary and A.T., a blanket wrapped around the three of them. “I bet those men will leave after they smash up all the furniture and things. Then we can go back.”
“I don’t think we’ll be able to go back,” Roy told them, staring north in the direction from which they had fled.
“Oh no,” Scrappy sighed in a whisper as they turned to look.
Across the fields, above the trees, a dark column of smoke was rising up into the early morning light.
Daniel jumped up and started running through the scrub back towards their home. Queen ran after him and Rose followed, Roy and Scrappy right behind her. They ran back along the way they had fled that night in the darkness, back to the edge of the woods where the first rays of the rising sun were making long shadows across the pine needles piled thick on the ground.
At the edge of the forest Daniel stopped beneath the last row of trees and cried out, falling to his knees. Queen knelt next to him, crying, and pulled him to her. The others stopped dead, too shocked to think to stay hidden, stunned by the terrible sight in front of them.
The Carrier farm was on fire. The house was aflame, hot and bright, red and glowing from the intensity of the flames. Sparks from the burning roof blew onto the surrounding yard, creating patches of flames that leapt across the dry winter grass and made a circle of fire around the burning house.
As they watched the house began to slip and fall into itself. It was only a skeleton of a house now, shivering and dancing in the wavering lines of heat rising up from the conflagration. The wooden frame was consumed and soon the roof fell in, dropping down onto the second floor beneath it. A cheer went up from the mob surrounding the house that drowned out the cries of Daniel and the others as the house collapsed.
The burning debris fell again, through the ceiling beams and down into the first floor.
Soon all that remained was a glowing pile of burning rubble. Behind the house the corncrib was burning and the kennels were already gone to ash and cinder. The clotheslines were on fire. Trees and shrubs surrounding the buildings had begun to burn, smoke rising from the green wood. People ran around the house, looking like demons as they ran with burning sticks to the smokehouse and the barn and set them on fire. More demon people set the fruit trees ablaze and fired the chicken coop.
Other people were carrying things away from the house, hauling off goods in hand wagons and pulling animals on ropes as they fled. Groups stood next to piles of burning material and some people threw on more items to burn as they ran past, laughing and calling out. Cars and wagons were hurrying up and down the road, men waving torches as they passed, men were yelling and firing off their guns.
“It looks like Hell,” Rose whispered.
“C-come on,” Roy pulled at her, his teeth chattering. “Come on b-b-before they see us. Those people are crazy, come on,” he begged, and pulled at Daniel until he got up and followed, Queen holding on to him and pushing his face back around when he tried to turn to look again.
From the Gainesville Sun, Friday January 5, 1923:
5 DIE SUMNER RACE RIOT
_____
TWO WHITE MEN AND THREE
BLACKS ARE SHOT TO DEATH
__________
ROSEWOOD, THREE MILES OUT OF
SUMNER, IS CENTRE OF TROUBLE
ARISING FROM CASE OF ASSAULT
__________
Twenty-Five Negroes, Barricaded in House,
Defy Armed Posse and Open Fire on
Whites, Killing Two, Wound-
ing Several
_____________
ENTIRE CITY OF CEDAR KEY UP IN ARMS
__________
Sheriff Ramsey and Many Others Respond to Call
of Levy County Officers to Aid in Quell-
ing Rebellious Black Population
_____________
Two white men and three negroes are dead and a num-
ber of whites and blacks injured as a result of an outbreak at
Rosewood, three miles from Sumner, Levy county, late to-
day and early tonight, according to reports received here late
tonight by telephone from Cedar Key.
The dead are Boly Wilkinson of Sumner and Henry An-
drews of Otter Creek, both white, and three unidentified
negroes.
The reports added that the populat-
ion of Cedar Key was aroused and
that many armed men from there
were planning to go to Rosewood.
The Sun was requested to ask Sher-
iff Ramsey, of this, Alachua county,
to go to the scene with as many men
as possible as it was feared the situ-
ation, apparently already beyond con-
trol of the Levy county authorities,
would grow worse.
[section deleted]
Last night’s trouble started when
armed men went to Rosewood in
search of the negro wanted for the
assault of a young woman at Sum-
ner. When they arrived they found
that the negroes had barricaded them-
selves in a house there. When two
members of the posse started to en-
ter they were shot and killed.
Several negroes are reported to
have been killed immediately after-
wards. Other white men are report-
ed to have been wounded in the ex-
change of shots which followed.
The negroes are still barricaded in
the house. A large number of armed
men have surrounded the place.
Negro quarters in Sumner and
Bronson are under heavy guard and
none of the residents are being al-
lowed to leave.