Set in the Roaring Twenties, Kevin Boyle’s Arc of Justice examines race relations in the crowded and bustling city of Detroit. Focusing on the story of Ossain Sweet, Boyle uses this book to depict the trying experiences of blacks moving into all-white communities in their fight for comparative peace, and the rise of the N.A.A.C.P. At the age of thirteen, Sweet’s parents sent him away from their family farm in Florida so that he could escape the Jim Crow South and build a better life for himself. After working his way through schooling at both Wilberforce University and Howard University Medical School, Sweet moved to Detroit in 1921 where he built a prosperous practice in the city’s largest ghetto, Black Bottom. In 1922, he met his wife Gladys, and together they had a daughter, Iva. …show more content…
Garland was an all-white working class area, but the couple knew they deserved the right to live there just like any other human being. Predicting there would be some sort of protest to their presence, Sweet assembled a group of nine friends to stay with them. On September 8, 2015, the Sweet’s moved into their new home with their assembled group of friends and a small arsenal of weapons for their protection. Although everyone in the house was on high alert the first night due to a large crowd outside, nothing happened. However, on the second night the crowd rioted, breaking the windows by throwing rocks and advancing on the door only slightly guarded by a small group of police. At some point within the chaos shots rang out from the house. On the street one man was injured and another was killed. The eleven black adults inside the house were arrested, taken to jail, and charged with first-degree