A white man is facing prison time in the racist attack of Black historian, Marvin Dunn. The irony is that the racist attack occurred in Rosewood, the very grounds of a tragic race massacre that claimed an entire town of Black people.
David Allen Emanuel, 62, set his sights on bothering Florida International University professor Marvin Dunn on September 6, 2022. Dunn and a group of men, a mix of white and Black, were meeting to discuss the plans for a “peace house” in honor of the Rosewood Massacre, per the Miami New Times. In 1923, a mob of 200 white men pummeled the community killing dozens of Black men, women and children and burnt the town to a crisp over the false accusation that Black Rosewood resident assaulted a white woman.
Dunn’s meeting was interrupted by Emanuel when he started shouting at the group and calling then n—-ers unprovoked, the report says. Emanuel then drove his truck toward the group at full speed as if he was going to hit them. Authorities say he was arrested a week later for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and allegedly complained on his way down to the jailhouse.
“I didn’t do a goddamn thing...get treated like this shit over a fucking nigger, man,” said Emanuel, according to prosecutors.
His criminal punishment didn’t stop there either.
Read more from Miami New Times:
Emanuel, a 62-year-old white resident of Rosewood, was convicted on six federal hate-crime counts in July and faced up to ten years in prison. Instead, U.S. District Judge Allen Winsor sentenced him to a year and a day for each count, to be served concurrently.
Emanuel was indicted on federal hate-crime charges for “willfully intimidating and attempting to intimidate” the six men with his truck. Emanuel’s federal public defender had asked for probation and no jail time, telling the court Emanuel “wants to offer his deepest apologies to the victims in this case.”
The report says it was Dunn who asked the judge for mercy.
“For me, my faith requires forgiveness and so I must. It requires me to love my neighbor as well, but I have more work to do on that. I am not asking my neighbor to love me or even to apologize to us. I only ask that he assures the court that we can live in peace as neighbors,” he wrote in a statement.