Ossian Sweet Chapter Summaries

The thesis of the book entails the accounts of racial tensions that took place in American in the 1920s and the emergence of civil rights movement based on the story of Ossian Sweet. The book depicts the story by a Detroit native, Boyle and how he tells the events of the city's most major civil rights episodes. The main event took place on September of 1925, when Ossian Sweet, his wife and a few friends protected their house with guns from an enraged mob of whites. After the tragic events of that night everyone in Sweet’s house were arrested and put on trial. Those events eventually led to Civil Rights Movement. The major arguments characterize the tension, and the "Negroes" fight to have better housing, the supremacy of the white neighborhood

He was born in Florida, and his parents sent him North to get a medical education when was 13 and later in 1921, he moved to Detroit, Michigan where he established a successful medical practice. In 1925, Sweet and his wife, Gladys purchased a home in Detroit. In 1925, he moved in with friends and some family members to help him curb any possible trouble given the existent racial tensions. The rumors about the purchase of the house by the Sweets, a Negro family in Garland Ave characterized a formation of an association that could “keep Garland safe from colored invasion.” During the period, there were series of racial violence across Detroit, and on September 8, the tension in Sweet’s neighborhood was profound and Sweet prepared to defend his home from any invasion. He left his infant daughter to stay back at his wife mother's home and notified the Detroit police about the situation at hand. During the night, a crowd of 100 and 150 gathered in the neighborhood and the next evening showed a larger group gathering, later stones were thrown towards Sweet’s home, and shots were fired from his house striking a 33-year-old Leon Breine at the back with another man nursing leg injuries. The six police officers who were there during the event and failed to contain the situation went to Sweet’s house and arrested the eleven occupants. Sweet served a jail

The other players the author looked into include Sweet and his friends as well as the Detroit authority, the police force and their role in the racial tensions. From the jail cell, Gladys says, “Though I suffer and am torn loose from my fourteen-month-old baby, I feel it is my duty to the womanhood of my race. If I am freed, I shall return and live at my home on Garland