The Real Rosewood Story with Historical Orator Lizzie Robinson Jenkins

FROM THE DESK OF FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT, LIZZIE ROBINSON JENKINS:

Long before The Real Rosewood Foundation was created, my mother strongly suggested researching the real truths of the Rosewood occurrence. The two of us shared the dark secrets of the Rosewood story over the years starting in 1943, when I was only five. For me, the most significant part of the Rosewood story is centered on its schoolteacher, Mom’s sister, my favorite aunt and mentor, Mahulda Gussie Brown Carrier.

The memory of Rosewood is constantly on my mind. I have not been able to lay the burden of its history down. To my mother, Theresa Brown Robinson, Rosewood was a “song” etched in her heart. She promised my Aunt Mahulda that she would keep her secrets safely hidden, but the thought of what happened to her dear sister in Rosewood made the vow too tremendous a task to keep silent during the making of the movie, ROSEWOOD. As the title of the old Negro Spiritual suggests, “I Said I Wasn’t Gonna Tell Nobody but I Couldn't Keep It to Myself,” my mother was compelled to share her sister’s story, reliving the horrifying and hostile events she witnessed in 1923, at age 21. Mom contributed a great deal of information to the moviemakers; however, they used her information and did not properly give credit.

She was offended after watching the Rosewood movie and charged me with completing her Rosewood research, firmly stating, "Mommy didn't raise no fools. You finish my research and tell our own Rosewood story. I have given you enough oral family history to make a documentary and you must do just that!"