Rosewood

In 1982 a reporter doing a story about Levy County in Florida noticed the area seemed to have no black residents. The reporter asked questions, and details of a shocking, true tragedy decades earlier came to light. On New Year’s day, 1923, the town of Rosewood, populated by quiet, middle-class African-Americans was wiped off the face of the earth by angry whites from a neighboring community. Following the palpably false testimony by a single white woman against one “black” stranger, many of the men of Rosewood were hunted down and lynched, shot, or burned. The rest of the town’s residents fled into the swamps and never returned. The most notable black heroes are Sylvester (Don Cheadle), a music teacher and Mann (Ving Rhames), a stranger on horseback who becomes the focus of white hatred and black resistance. The adulterous town grocer John Wright (Jon Voight), one of the few white residents, also plays a key role in saving lives, but before he does, he must resolve painful racial issues and make a difficult personal choice. This film is based on a true story.