Lizzie Robinson Jenkins of Archer wants to make sure that the Civil War-era town of Rosewood is not forgotten.
The 86-year-old historian and founder of the non-profit The Real Rosewood Foundation wants the former Black community, which was decimated by the Ku Klux Klan, to be remembered in a museum that she plans to open in Archer by 2026.
“We are going to resurrect the town of Rosewood,” Jenkins said.
A real-life replica of Rosewood will be built on 29 acres donated by Jenkins and funded by donations and $480,000 of state funds.
Founded in 1847, Rosewood was a predominantly Black community in Levy County, only nine miles east of Cedar Key.
Mahulda Gussie Brown Carrier, Jenkin’s aunt, worked as a schoolteacher in Rosewood, where she lived with her husband, Aaron Carrier. Jenkins retold her aunt and uncle’s story:
On New Year’s Day in 1923, the Ku Klux Klan descended on Rosewood after a white woman falsely accused a Black man of assaulting her to cover up her affair with another white man.
According to Jenkins, the white mobs targeted Aaron, dragging him out of bed and beating him “almost to death.” Then, the mob’s violence turned on Gussie, Jenkins’ aunt.
Fueled by bigotry and prejudice, the white mobs set Rosewood on fire. Some Rosewood residents fought back, but the rest fled.
Jenkins’ mother, Theresa Brown Robinson, lived in Archer, 37 miles away from Rosewood where her sister lived.
“She said she could smell the stench from Rosewood of burning people,” Jenkins said.
Jenkins spent her life carrying her Gussie’s story. In 1982, Jenkins began learning more about Rosewood and researching the history behind her aunt’s experience. In 2003, she started The Real Rosewood Foundation to preserve history, empower survivors and educate the community.
Now, her goal is to rebuild Rosewood as a museum in memory of Aunt Gussie.
Pegeen Hanrahan, associate director of conservation finance for the Trust for Public Land and former mayor of Gainesville contacted Jenkins about three years ago after she heard about her aspirations of building a museum.
Hanrahan applied for state financing on behalf of the foundation. After receiving $480,000 in state funds, Jenkins was able to begin developing plans and artist renderings for the Mahulda Gussie Brown Carrier Cultural Museum.
Jenkins then donated 29 acres of her family’s estate to the foundation with the intent to replicate Rosewood in Archer.
“I wanted to bring it home,” Jenkins said. Jenkins mother, Theresa Robinson, and Gussie, her sister, were raised on their family’s 127-year-old estate in Archer with their eight other siblings.
To Jenkins, it made sense to build Gussie’s museum where she was raised before she moved to Rosewood.
“This is the museum that will make sure it’s never forgotten,” said Jordan Marlowe, Newberry’s mayor and executive chair of the foundation.
The foundation plans to replicate life-size versions of the architecture in Rosewood by building shotgun houses. These narrow homes align all the rooms to where one can shoot through the front door and a bullet passes through back without interruption.
Jenkins said she wants to recreate the school where her aunt taught and rebuild the local church, so people can once again walk the streets of Rosewood.
According to Marlowe, the foundation plans to break ground and begin building in Archer within the next 12 to 18 months. Jenkins announced her plans for the museum at her 86th birthday party in November. She used the opportunity to showcase the first artist renderings of what the resurrected town will look like and raise funds for its development.
Almost 200 family members, friends, colleagues and supporters bought $50 tickets to attend her celebration at Visors Rooftop in Spurrier’s Gridiron Grill. Even Former University of Florida football coach Steve Spurrier appeared to say, “Happy birthday” and show his support.
John Alexander, a friend of Jenkins for the past decade, said he wasn’t surprised when Jenkins decided to announce her plans at her 86th birthday party.
“It’s Miss Lizzie’s style,” he said.
Before becoming the director of government affairs and community relations for the city of Gainesville, Alexander worked with community youth. He said Jenkins took the youth on tours of Rosewood and taught them about its devastating history.
“Every day I live Rosewood,” Jenkins said, “Every day.”
In 1943, when she was five years old, her mother told her Gussie’s story. “I had no idea what a massacre meant,” Jenkins said.
Jenkins was raised during the Jim Crow era, a time when her mother warned her not to look white people in the eyes. She said she didn’t tell her family’s story to anyone. Instead, she held onto it throughout her childhood and into adulthood.
When reporters began seeking Rosewood descendants in 1982, almost 60 years after the massacre, she told her family’s story.
“We wanted the truth,” Jenkins said. Of her four siblings, Jenkins was the youngest and, according to her, the only one interested in keeping the story alive.
“She has single-handedly kept this history going,” Marlowe said. “She picked up right where her mother left off.”
Jenkins said her mother “assigned” her to tell the story of Rosewood. “The assignment is just heavy,” she said.
She struggles daily with the pain of constantly confronting the gruesome truth of her family’s past. “When I get through telling the story when I go home, the first thing I’m going to do is get in bed in [the] fetal position and decompress,” Jenkins said.
But she continues for her mother and for those who want to know Rosewood’s history.
“We all know at this date, age and time that we need to discuss race relations,” said Pedro Jermaine, the foundation’s vice president and resident artist. “You need people like Lizzie to help lead us and guide us through that.”
Jermaine says the most important part of this discussion is educating youth.
“Miss Lizzie is exactly like my own grandmother,” said Dylan Clark, a podcast producer for Jenkins’ “Queen Lizzie Podcast,” which is a weekly podcast where Jenkins and a special guest discuss Rosewood’s history.
Dylan Clark says that Jenkins changed his perspective since meeting her this past year. “It’s so close to home,” said Clark, who grew up in Levy County. He said he often drove through Rosewood to go fishing at Cedar Key.
“It was an awful event, and we didn’t even hear about it,” he said. “I feel like we just brushed past it.”
Clark said that when the museum opens, he will be among the first to see it. “This is going to be in the history books now, and this is going to be remembered,” Clark said
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
