Welcome to the Virtual Rosewood Research site. This is a place to learn more about the tragic history of a prosperous, mostly Black town destroyed by collective violence in January 1923. The site's main goals are to explore the intersections between new media technologies, anthropological methods, and documentary research in documenting racially charged collective violence. Specifically, new media refers to an aray of 3D and information technologies we are employing to digitally reconstruct the vanished landscape of Rosewood as it stood prior to 1923. Then, ethnographic and oral history research are creating a more complete interpretation of this site.

The Virtual Rosewood project is an experiment in academically-informed storytelling using virtual media; akin to digital storytelling or machinima. The end output for this initial step is to create a ~20 minute documentary about the community that was lost. This represents a conscious decision to re-focus disscussion upon traumatic loss instead of dwelling on violence.

However, this re-centering cannot ignore the historical legacy such events have in US history. Many minority populations in America continue to seek redress in relation to exactly the type of event which erased the community of Rosewood in early 1923. Therefore, this project is openly aligned with such movements and actively seeks to expand the public conversation on the truth-telling, monetary compensation, and political effects of redress and reparations activism in our country.

Historic spaces like Rosewood still have much to teach 21st century America about the lasting heritage of inequality all around us. Indeed, Rosewood is like too many other sites that have 'vanished' under a fog of collective amnesia. These hazy chapters of history haunt our group memory and remind us that those who forget are doomed to repeat...

Edward Gonzalez-Tennant
February 28th, 2010