Florida will pay $2.1 million in compensation to survivors of a racist rampage that destroyed a small black community 71 years ago.
Seven survivors of the 1923 Rosewood massacre watched as Gov. Lawton Chiles signed the legislation Wednesday."I believed that deep down in my heart from the day my mother told us we had to leave home that the Lord would one day provide for me before I died," 74-year-old Mary Magdalene Hall said. "This is that day, my lucky day."
A mob of whites on an unsuccessful search for a black man accused of assaulting a white woman burned down virtually every building in Rosewood and killed at least six of the 120 blacks who lived there.
The compensation law establishes a $1.5 million fund to pay $150,000 to each survivor.
The law also provides $500,000 to reimburse residents who lost property and $100,000 a year for college scholarships for descendants of Rosewood families and other minorities.
Chiles said the compensation will not correct "this blind act of bigotry," but it will ensure "the tragedy of Rosewood will never be forgotten by the generations yet to come."