They walked in silence down the dirt road that ran between the rows of silent houses. The walls of the houses echoed their footsteps back at them, tick tick in the silence of a village still asleep or at least pretending to sleep. Curtains flicked in front windows and were still. A dog barked once and was suddenly silent, the only sound the rattle of metal as its chain ran up short.
Marlene knocked, knocked again, knocking on the door of the third house they had tried. At the first two, no one had answered. No one opened their doors even when someone looked out to see who knocked. No one came out to their knocking and no one appeared out of the other houses to see who came by.
Marlene jumped back into Roy as the door opened a bit. A woman looked out and frowned.
“You can’t come in,” the woman hissed through the crack.
“Auntie Ti, it’s us. Marlene and Mary and A.T., Grandmama Sarah’s children. They burned us out,” Marlene whispered.
“You all go on. We don’t want any trouble with anybody.”
“Auntie, we came through the swamp. They killed Grandmama. Queen here’s sick, all of us been walking all morning,” Roy begged.
The woman cut him off with a gesture, shaking her head and stepping back from the door. “I can’t help you. I have babies in here, and we didn’t have anything to do with all this mess. You come in, somebody hears about it, next thing you know they’ll be stopping here looking for you all. Then they’ll burn us out when they find you.”
“Auntie, where can we go? Our folks are down in Gulf Hammock. What are we supposed to do?” Marlene asked, tears in her eyes.
“Move on up to Otter Creek or go to your folks in Gulf Hammock. Go back to Sumner, see if somebody there will take you in. I don’t know, but you can’t stay here. Now get out the yard before somebody comes by. Go on, we don’t want any trouble.”
The woman closed the door.
From the St. Petersburg Times, Friday January 5, 1923:
ARMED POSSE
HUNTS NEGRO
_______
Fugitive Escapes from
House Where Six Die in
Racial Clash
_________
ROSEWOOD, Fla., Jan. 5.- (By
A.P.)- Armed posses of white
men, numbering between 200 and
300, tonight were scouring the
countryside for Jesse Hunter, es-
caped negro convict, search for
whom last in connection
with an attack on a white girl re-
sulting in the killing of two white
men and four negroes and the
wounding of four other white men.
Additional ammunition has been
ordered from Gainesville and
Sheriff Elias Walker told the
Associated Press tonight that fur-
ther trouble appeared imminent.
Relatives of the slain negroes are
believed to be armed and are ex-
pected to cause trouble if overtaken
by the whites.
NEGRO SECTION FIRED
Following the clash between the
races, the negro section was fired
and virtually was destroyed, six
houses and a negro church being
burned. All negroes have fled
Rosewood and are believed to be
hiding in the woods for protection.
C.P. Wilkerson, a merchant of
Sumner, and Henry Andrews,
superintendent of the Sumner Lum-
ber Co. at Otter Creek, were killed
when they advanced on a negro
house last night to see Sylvester
Carrier, negro, who was believed
to know the whereabouts of Hun-
ter. Their companions then rained
bullets on the house, the negroes
returning the fire. The number
of negroes in the house was esti-
mated at twenty-five.
Before dawn the white men’s
ammunition became exhausted and
the negroes escaped before the
supply could be replenished. A
search of the house revealed that
Sylvester Carrier and his mother,
Sarah Carrier, had been shot to
death. [Lexy] Gordon, negro wo-
man, was shot to death as she was
leaving her burning dwelling, it
was reported. This afternoon the
body of Mingo Williams, negro,
was found on the road about 20
miles from Rosewood. He had
been shot through the jaw.
LIST OF WOUNDED
The white men wounded were:
(continued on page two)
Armed Posse
(continued from page one)
Cecil Studstill of Sumner, Bryan
Kirkland of Sumner, Mannie Hud-
son of Sumner and Henry Odom
of Otter Creek. Several negroes
are also believed to have been
shot.
The community has been arous-
ed since an attack on a young
white woman at Sumner Monday.
Hunter, who escaped from a road
gang in Levy County, was accused
in connection with the crime, which
was said to have resulted in Car-
rier saying his act was an exam-
ple of what the negroes could do
without interference. The white
men went to Carrier’s home last
night, both to see if Hunter was
there and to warn Carrier against
further talk of that kind. Hunter
was serving a prison term for car-
rying concealed weapons. It was
believed he was in the house at
the time of the clash.