Dr.+Sweet+Trial

toc **I. Summary**
A black doctor, Dr. Ossian Sweet, and his wife moved into an all-white neighborhood on the east side of Detroit in 1925 becoming one of the first families to integrate that neighborhood. When the time came for the Sweet family to move in, their neighbors greeted them not with baked goods but with a shower of bricks and rocks. The Sweets had come prepared as well, and someone from the Sweet house opened fire upon the mob of angry white people who seemed about to storm the house. Two bystanders were shot, and neither were participating in the attack. One of the wounded men died and the other recovered. However, Dr. Sweet, his brothers, and all of the other men were eventually put on trial for murder.

Famous defense attorney, Clarence Darrow, fresh off of his latest "Trial of the Century," the Scopes Monkey Trial in Dayton, Tennessee, was called to defend the Sweets and friends. In the first trial, Darrow works his lawyerly magic with an all-white jury and pointed out the inconsistencies of the eyewitnesses' testimonies and the Sweets' accounts of that night. The first trial ended in a hung jury because of the reasonable doubt raised by the defense. In the second trial, only Dr. Sweet's brother, Henry was put on trial instead of all the men in the house because he was the only person in the Sweet house to have admitted firing a gun. In this trial, Darrow appealed to the all-white, all-male jury to overcome any prejudice that they might feel towards Henry Sweet and look at him as someone who might be defending his home. The jury found Henry Sweet not guilty and Judge Frank Murphy dismissed the remaining murder charges against Dr. Sweet and the other eight men in the house, feeling that additional trials would be futile.



=II. Chronology= 1915 - Detroit's black population numbers 7,000 but will quickly grow because of the expanding auto industry.

III. Increase in the Black Population of Detroit (1910-1930)
Below, you can see by this chart that the Great Migration of African Americans (1915-1960) affected Detroit dramatically.
 * ||~ ||~   ||||~   ||~   || ||~ % INCREASE, 1910-30 ||~ BLACK POP. IN 1910 ||~ BLACK POP. IN 1920 ||~ BLACK POP. IN 1930 ||
 * ** DETROIT ** || ** 1991% ** || ** 5,741 ** || ** 40,838 ** || ** 120,066 ** ||
 * CLEVELAND || 751% || 8,448 || 34,451 || 71,899 ||
 * CHICAGO || 430% || 44,103 || 109,458 || 233,903 ||
 * NEW YORK || 257% || 91,709 || 152, 467 || 327,706 ||
 * PHILADELPHIA || 160% || 84,459 || 134,229 || 219,599 ||
 * PITTSBURGH || 115% || 25,623 || 37,725 || 54,983 ||
 * BIRMINGHAM || 89% || 52,305 || 70,230 || 99,077 ||
 * MEMPHIS || 84% || 52,441 || 61,181 || 96,550 ||
 * ATLANTA || 74% || 51,902 || 62,796 || 90,075 ||

X. Sources
Boyle, Kevin. //Arc of Justice: a Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age//. New York: H. Holt, 2004. Print. Farley, Reynolds. "Home of Dr. Ossian Sweet." //Historic Sites in Detroit's Racial History//. Reynolds Farley, 2009. Web. 05 Feb. 2011. []. Linder, Douglas. "The Sweet Trials." //Famous American Trials//. UMKC School of Law, 2000. Web. 11 Feb. 2011. [].