[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 27 (Thursday, February 9, 2023)]
[House]
[Page H805]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   REMEMBERING THE ROSEWOOD MASSACRE

  (Mr. JACKSON of Illinois asked and was given permission to address 
the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to give mournful 
recognition of the 100-year anniversary of the Rosewood massacre, an 
event that is still one of the darkest chapters of American history.
  On January 1, 1923, the small town of Rosewood, Florida, was the site 
of one of the worst racial attacks in the long history of this Nation.
  Sparked by false allegations against an innocent Black man, a mob of 
White residents descended upon the Black community of Rosewood, and it 
is estimated that upward of 200 people were killed and virtually every 
building in that small African-American community was literally burned 
to the ground.
  I stand in this well as the Representative of the First Congressional 
District of the State of Illinois, a district with a majority of 
minorities, of African Americans and Hispanics, which by pride and 
passion, a majority within its soul and sinews, feels the traumatic 
vestiges of Americans' inhumanity toward other Americans.
  But this is American history, and it is as American as anything we 
might say about Concord and Appomattox.

  In spite of the dark tragedies interwoven within our story, what 
happened in Rosewood 100 years ago is as American as anything that 
happened at Gettysburg or Ellis Island. It must be repeated to our 
children, lest we deny ourselves all the honesty we need to grow to be 
a better country.
  I implore my colleagues to join me in condemning the College Board of 
Florida for removing AP African-American curriculum.

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