In 1914, Henry Ford shocked the business world by announcing that his lowest paid workers would receive the unheard-of sum of five dollars per day. This and other factors spurred the Great Migration, the movement of African-Americans from the southern states to the industrial north. Between 1910-1929, Detroit’s African-American population grew 611%.
In 1924, Dr. Ossian Sweet and his wife, Gladys, returned to America from France. They settled in Detroit. In Europe, Dr. Sweet had taken advanced studies in medicine, studying from Marie Curie among others. Ossian Sweet aspired to be among the Talented Tenth, W.E.B. Du Bois’ term for the group of black professionals who would by leadership and example, improve the life for their people.
The sudden influx of African-Americans strained the housing market in Detroit. Blacks were by custom and real estate codes restricted to a few neighborhoods within the city. These neighborhoods became increasingly crowded. Tensions within the city ran high. From the pulpit, a young Detroit minister, the Anglo theologian Reinhold Neibuhr, preached against racism.
Insistent upon his right to home ownership, Ossian Sweet purchased property on Garland Avenue in an all-white neighborhood in May 1925. The house, an ordinary red-brick 1 ½ story bungalow sat behind a low picket fence. It had a broad front porch and was to be the family home. The move did not go quietly. The Waterworks Park Improvement Association formed as white residents sought to prevent blacks from moving into their neighborhoods. Crowds gathered outside the home.Aware of the opposition, the Sweets delayed their move until September. When the Sweets arrived at their new home on September 8th, they brought relatively little furniture. Dr. Sweet did, however, bring his brothers, Otis and Henry, several friends, ten guns and 400 rounds of ammunition. The Detroit police detailed officers to keep the peace.
On September 10th, 1925, for the second consecutive night, a hostile crowd formed outside the home. The night was hot. The house was besieged by racial epithets and stones. At least one window was broken. Then, someone fired a shot from a second-floor window. One man, Leon Breiner, was killed and another man wounded. Dr. Ossian Sweet, his wife Gladys, both of his brothers and the seven other residents of the house were arrested and charged with murder.
The Judge presiding over the case, Frank Murphy, went on to become a justice of the United States Supreme Court. He had a reputation for being liberal and a humanitarian.
The NAACP recruited the most famous criminal lawyer of the day, Clarence Darrow, to lead the defense. He was reportedly motivated to participate, not only because of his commitment to racial justice but also by Detroit’s proximity to Canada, a land where Prohibition did not exist. “Even before the Civil War the runaway slaves would come to Detroit, for this city was in sight of the Union Jack which was flying beyond the river, in Windsor, Canada. To the footsore slave fleeing from his master, the Union Jack was the emblem of freedom, just as it is today for the thirsty,” he said.
The Defense faced several challenges. The crowd had been angry and tense but had never tried to enter the Sweet’s house. Under Michigan law, self-defense would be difficult to prove. The gunfire reportedly came in a volley. The firearms had been stockpiled. Breiner had been shot in the back, meaning that it was unlikely that he was an aggressor.
The prosecution, however, was not without its hurdles to overcome. The seventy eyewitnesses Prosecutor Toms called, seemed to belie the government’s contention that only a small group had gathered outside and did not surround the house. Darrow also made clear through cross-examination that the witnesses had been coached to testify to the crowd’s peaceable nature. Since no one could prove who fired the shot, the government was forced to proceed on a conspiracy theory to obtain a conviction.
A trial began on October 30th, 1925 for all eleven defendants. This trial ended in a mistrial when the all-male, 