A new movie about the destruction of a mostly-black Florida town of Rosewood in 1923 provides a horrifying view of an incident all too common at that time. But for some reason, the filmmakers chose not to show the part of the Rosewood story that makes it unique -- the victory of a determined band of survivors who, after more than 70 years, won a full apology and compensation from those who should have protected them.

Comparing a film with the book it is based on is always somewhat unfair. A film must convey the story in as simple and entertaining a way as possible -- which often means that many of the book's characters disappear and the plot is stripped. That's why we often feel "the book was better."

That is particularly true of the film "Rosewood," directed by John Singleton. It shows us the tragedy of the town of Rosewood in bloody and horrifying detail. But -- except for a line of text at the end -- it doesn't show us the triumph.

That triumph was well documented in the book, Like Judgment Day, by Michael D'Orso. In fact, his subtitle -- "The Ruin and Redemption of a Town Called Rosewood" -- should have called out to the filmmakers, compelling them to make the victory of those who survived the violence a principal part of the story. Singleton certainly knew the whole story -- he wrote the preface to the paperback edition of the book.

As the film shows. Rosewood was a mostly-black town in western Florida. In 1923, it was virtually obliterated in a wild orgy of racial violence, violence touched off by a rumor that an African-American man had raped a white woman. White vigilante mobs formed and went on a rampage. When the smoke cleared, nearly every black home had been burned to the ground, and perhaps a dozen or more blacks had been killed or wounded. Hundreds of men, women and children fled in terror into the woods.

The carnage would have been much greater if not for a heroic white train engineer who spirited the terrified blacks out of the county. There was also a valiant, small group of whites in a nearby town who confronted the mob at gun point and defended their black neighbors.

Still, there was no outcry against the violence, and no arrests were made. It was another racial incident of a type all too common in the south in the era of lynch law.

Singleton does an admirable job of depicting both the tragedy and heroism of black and white. But he omits the unique element that essentially explains why the Rosewood story ever made it to the screen. He does not show us that the violence did, ultimately, attract national attention, and the survivors received a much belated measure of justice.

Here is that story: in 1982, a reporter for the St. Petersburg Times spent months tracking down and interviewing the survivors of the incident. The newspaper published a lengthy series on Rosewood, and CBS News "60 Minutes" did a segment based on interviews with survivors the next year.

A handful of survivors, descendants and relatives of survivors began a campaign to get the state of Florida to admit it was culpable for failing to protect the lives and property of the people of Rosewood, and to compensate the victims.

At first, state officials refused to consider their claims. and law enforcement agencies refused to investigate. Even some blacks questioned the wisdom of pursuing the matter.

But the group persisted -- basing their case partly on the precedent set by the U.S. government's apology and payments to Japanese-Americans for slapping them into "relocation camps" in World War II, and the German government's payments to Jewish survivors of the Holocaust.

Finally, after more than a decade, in 1994, their efforts paid off. In an emotion-packed scene before the full Florida legislature, Rosewood survivors vividly recounted the night of violence seventy years earlier, and the personal pain they had lived with their entire lives.

After some partisan wrangling, the legislature awarded the survivors $2 million. The moment that bill was approved, the spectators gallery erupted in cheers, tears, and prayers of thanks.

While the money could not compensate them f or their suffering, it was more than a symbolic victory. It marked the first -- and only -- time in U.S.. history that African Americans succeeded in getting a government body to formally admit liability for a racially motivated act of violence against them. Without that victory, the story of Rosewood would certainly have stayed buried.

The triumph of the Rosewood survivors has much to teach us. The most important lesson is that crimes of the past should not and must not be forgotten, and that justice can be attained if enough people are willing to work and fight for it.

To ignore this in the film Rosewood is not only regrettable, it is inexcusable.