The Castle on Garland Street: The Story of Ossian Sweet

In 1925 Detroit, Michigan a Black family moved into a White neighborhood. A 
mob attacked their home with rocks, and one man was killed. 10 men went to trial for first-degree murder. With Clarence Darrow leading the defense, the attorneys and the NAACP had to convince an all-White jury that defending one's home was not a crime, but a right.

Please Be Advised: There's a graphic description of a child's murder

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Team & Contributors

Executive Producer- Clare O'Donohue 
https://clareodonohue.com

Executive Producer - Margaret Smith

Editor – Ann Rose
https://www.letsmakethings.com

Social Media Manager & Design - Mikayla Bogus
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IT Manager - Conor Sweeney

Marketing Consultant – Patrick Hackett

The History of Murder Logo - Bernadette Carr
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Theme Song “My Carnal Life I Will Lay Down” - Rob Brereton
https://robertbrereton.com
 
Daniel Baxter, Founder
https://ohsweetfoundation.org/

Voice of Ossian Sweet – Ric Walker

Voice of Clarence Darrow – Rush Howell

Voice of Walter White & W.E.B DuBois – Nnamdi Ngwe
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Transcript

Clare (00:04.495)
 Detroit, Michigan, 1925. 10 black men were on trial for the murder and attempted murder of white men. The jury deciding their fate was all white men. So was the judge. The case captured the attention of the nation and detested the limits of illegal precedent that still affects us today. It's the history of murder and I'm your host, Clare O'Donohue.
 
 Clare  (00:48.718)
 Dr. Ossian Sweet and his wife Gladys moved into a two-story brick house at 2905 Garland Street in Detroit, Michigan on September 8th, 1925. The Sweets had bought the house at above market rates. They paid $18,500 for it, more than 6,000 what the house would have sold to someone else. That's about 330,000 in today's money and about 100,000 over market. Why so much? Because the Sweets were black, moving into an all-white neighborhood. They were at their home less than 48 hours before one person was dead and another injured. Daniel Baxter, founder and CEO of the Dr. Ossian Suite Foundation, called the trial that followed a landmark civil rights case. 
 
 Daniel
 It was about America and its growing pains. It was about the ugly sin of slavery. It was about. people just recognizing that whether we're red, white, black, brown, green, we were all created in the image and likeness of God. That's what this is about. So you tell this story so that people will be reminded of it, that they'll have an opportunity to see a piece of themselves in it and try to be better and do better as Americans.
 
 Clare
 Ossian Sweet was born in Bartow, Florida on October 30th, 1895. His father was a farmer and Ossian, one of 10 kids, worked the fields. When he was only five, he witnessed an awful sight.
 
 Daniel
 He's walking through the woods and he hears a ruckus. So he gravitates toward the ruckus. And when he gets to the clearing, he sees a mob of white folks surrounding him. This 16 year old little boy by the name of Fred Rochelle. Fred Rochelle is accused of raping and murdering a white woman. The mob, he has no judge, no jury, just an execution.
 (03:05.774) Ossian observes this incident and he talks about how they tied him up to a barrel and how they doused him with kerosene and how they took a match and threw it onto his body and how his body just went up in flames. A frail shell screamed to his very last breath, fragrance of kerosene and flesh.
 
 Clare (03:40.972)
 When his body had been burned to a char, the mob cut pieces of Fred Rochelle's skin and kept them as souvenirs. Ossian called it the most terrifying sight of his young life.
 
 Clare (03:59.854)
 By 13, his family had sent him north to get an education. They could see he was smart. They wanted more for him, and he wanted more for himself. He went to Ohio, then DC, eventually getting his medical degree from Howard University. Then in 1921, he moved to Detroit. It was there he met his wife, Gladys. She grew up in the city, the stepdaughter of a concert pianist.
 
 Daniel
 Her parents were determined that she had every advantage and made sure she went to good schools. She grew up in diverse neighborhood. know, white folks lived all around. But Gladys was fair skinned. So it may not have been perceived as an issue for her and her family to live in that particular community. She graduated from a teacher school. She was a well-to-do young lady. It's clear what Ossian saw in her.
 
 Clare
 And though he was more serious and perhaps socially insecure, he was quite handsome and accomplished. 
 
 Daniel 
 So the 1920s, you had the New Negro movement, as well as the notion on the philosophy of the talented 10. W.E.B. Du Bois, who was a prominent African American at the time, one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, came up with the notion that 10 % of Black America would excel socially, politically, and economically and carve a route for the other 90 percent. So Dr. Sweet, he bought into that notion. He was part of the talented 10. 
 
 Clare
 Ossian and Gladys married in 1922 and took off to Vienna and Paris. There, Ossian continued his studies focusing on cutting edge medicine. It was in Paris where they had their daughter, Iva. plan was to return to Detroit, which was becoming a very popular place to live. 
 
 Daniel
 Detroit was experiencing population boom as a result of the automobile industry. Henry Ford began to mass produce his then-Maui Tee, and as a result, he began to recruit human resources from the South. 
 
 Clare
 The population in Detroit was under a million in 1920, but in the decade that followed, it would nearly double.(06:26.912)As more workers came up from the South, the question of where to put them became increasingly urgent. 
 
 Daniel
 Detroit was a segregated city. Blacks lived in a community that was called Paradise Valley and the Black Bottom. The neighborhoods were just not big enough to hold the growing Black community. They lived in overcrowded communities. Oftentimes the sanitation was not up to code. Garbage wasn't picked up on regular basis.Single-family homes were carved in a way where four families were living in those homes. So it was tidy. And African-Americans were not encouraged to move outside of the boundaries of Black Bottom.
 
 Clare
 When they returned to Detroit, the Sweets were not interested in moving into Black Bottom. But there weren't a lot of options. 
 
 Daniel
 The challenge was Black people couldn't get mortgages at that time. So he had to find somebody who was willing to sell the house on that contract. 
 
 Clare
 They had to find homeowners willing to do private mortgages, which definitely cut down on options. But Gladys and Acien set their sights on finding a house for their family. Gladys wanted a yard for Iva and a front porch where she could sit and enjoy summer evenings. The house on Garland Street met those qualifications. It had been built in the arts and crafts style with oak trim and a built-in hutch. It also had plenty of room if they grew their family beyond the three of them. And in the meantime, they could rent out the spare rooms and help make the payments. 
 
 Daniel
 When Gladys comes into this living room and dining room, she falls in love immediately. Dr. Sweet loves the home as well because it's spacious. There's a school across the street. It has a big backyard and he feels really good about this community. Why? Because Eastern Europeans live in this community. They're from Yugoslavia and Poland. They are folk who have left tyrannical governments seeking life, liberty and happiness. Dr. Sweet believes that these people understand the plight of Black people and will be more sympathetic toward them. 
 
 Clare
 The current owners of the house were interracial.(08:52.29)though he was very light skinned and swore they'd encountered no issues. Still, the Swedes were cautious. 
 
 Daniel
 Before they purchased it, they sit on the front porch, they walk through the neighborhood so that the neighbors will recognize the fact that there are some serious Black folk who are interested in purchasing the house on the corner. There were no objections. No objections. Nobody even seemed to care.
 
 Clare (09:22.668)
 They put a down payment of $3,500 on the house. It was all of their savings. Less than three weeks later, a colleague of Ossian, Dr. Alexander Turner, bought a house in a white neighborhood on Detroit's west side. 
 
 Daniel
 A mob of 800 white folks surrounded his house. They destroy his home, break out every window. And then two men walk on the porch, knock on the front door and they announced themselves as representatives of the men. Dr. Turner opens the door and the mob rushes into this home and destroys the inside of the house, drags him out, places him on his knees, puts a gun to his head, makes him sign over the deed to the house to the Tiremen Improvement Association. Once he signs the deed, they packed his truck up with all of his furniture and send them out of their community. A couple of weeks later, a waiter by the name of John Fletcher purchases a home on Stokel Street. Same thing happens, the mob comes. And then a couple of weeks after that, one of Dr. Sweet's friends, funeral home director, Bulletin Bristol, faces a mob on American Street. So now there's a concern. 
 
 Clare
 Despite no issues in their new neighborhood, Ossian and Gladys made a plan. They would wait out the summer and move after Labor Day when the kids were back at school and the neighborhood was quieter during the day. But even with their caution, opposition began to bubble up. 
 
 Daniel
 During that interim, that time span, the timing improvement association that's get wind that a Negro family is about to move in to a house on the southeast side of Detroit. White real estate agents also have a concern and they began knocking on doors. They began to tell the neighbors, well, do you realize that Negroes are about to move into the house on the corner? These people, they don't know anything about that. They don't know about (11:48.942) racial tension in America. So they say, do you have daughters? I said, yes, we have daughters. He said, well, you have to watch out for them. very protective of their children, particularly your daughters. Do you like your house? Do you like your neighborhood? Yes, we love our neighborhood. Well, know, when Negroes move into your neighborhood, your property value will plummet. 
 
 Clare
 Many of the members of improvement associations that were visiting the neighborhood were Klan members. And they suggested that the families on Garland Street form their own improvement group. 
 
 Daniel
 And they do it. They formed the Waterworks Improvement Association. And the main goal is to maintain the purity of their neighborhoods. 
 
 Clare
 The Sweets got wind of the growing opposition to their move pushed by people who didn't even live in the neighborhood. But Ossian, who had put his life savings into the house, intended to go forward. 
 
 Ossian
 We've decided we're not going to run. We're not going to look for any trouble, but we're going to be prepared to protect ourselves if trouble arises. 
 
 Clare
 Ossian knew he was making a potentially dangerous decision, but he was also aware of what happened to his colleague, Alexander Turner, after the mob forced him out of his house.
 
 Daniel
 Poor old Dr. AL Turner. Not only did he have to deal with the mouth, but he had to deal with the backlash of what he did. Because he signed over the deed to the Tyerman Improvement Association, the black intelligentsia frowned upon him, Colm Coward. And to contribute to that, this really kind of was damning for him. His wife says, if it hadn't been me, I would have never signed that deed. So now he's dealing with that issue, his wife, what she said, and then black folks saying that he was a coward. It was so bad to the point that Dr. Turner moves to Cleveland because he just never felt good about Detroit anymore. So Dr. Sweet understood that.(14:10.862) And he understood that he couldn't back down. He had the weight of the world on his shoulders.
 
 Clare
 On Tuesday, September 8th, the Sweets moved in. Henry and Otis, Ossian's younger brothers, were with them. Henry was a student at Wilberforce University and Otis was a dentist in Detroit. Three other men and two women also came to help with the move. The Sweets bought the usual items, a few bits of furniture and household goods, and something else. 
 
 Daniel
 Just in case the welcoming committee brings something other than apple pie. They bring guns.
 
 Clare (14:56.162)
 The first night, it's estimated that a crowd somewhere between 500 and 800 people gathered outside the house. There was tension. The Swedes and their friends kept watch from inside, but it stayed peaceful. It was nearly three in the morning before the crowd dispersed. But the second night did not pass like the first. Otis Sweet, Ossian's brother, and several more men came by taxi to the house and were greeted by a gathering crowd shouting and threatening.
 
 Daniel
 Right around eight o'clock, some of the men are sitting right here in this dining room and they're playing cards. Gladys is cooking dinner. And all of a sudden, someone goes to the window and they say the people, the crowd, there's a lot of people out here. Dr. Sweet peeks and he sees the same thing. 
 
 Ossian
 The whole situation filled me with an appalling fear, a fear that no one could comprehend but a Negro. 
 
 Clare
 Soon the crowd grew bigger. They threw rocks and yelled racial slurs. 
 
 Ossian
 I ran out to the kitchen where my wife was. There were several lights burning. I turned them out and opened the door and I heard someone yell, go and raise hell in front. I'm going back. I was frightened. And after getting a gun ran upstairs. Stones kept hitting the house intermittently. I threw myself on the bed and lay there a short while, perhaps 15 minutes. When a stone came through the window, part of the glass hit me. 
 
 Clare
 There were nearly 20 policemen there to keep the peace, but the policemen did nothing to stop the crowd. 
 
 Daniel 
 Dr. Sweet comes downstairs. 
 
 Ossian
 When I opened the door, I saw the mob. I realized I was facing the same mob that had hounded my people throughout its entire history. In my mind,(16:57.187) I was pretty confident of what I was up against with my back against the wall. I was filled with a peculiar fear. The kind no one could feel unless they had known the history of our race. I knew what mobs had done to my people before.
 
 Daniel
 Then all of sudden shots ring out and then it's silent.
 
 Clare (17:24.086)
 As the house came under attack, someone had fired his weapon out the window. One man, Leon Breiner, was killed and a teenager, Eric Houghberg, was wounded.
 
 Daniel
 Leon Breiner was standing across the street on the front porch. He was part of the crowd. Eric Hauberg was a next door neighbor. He came downstairs to find out what all the commotion was about and he got shot in leg. 
 
 Clare
 The shooting seemed to wake up the police. 
 
 Daniel
 About five, 10 minutes later, about 20 officers come inside of the house and arrest everybody. They handcuff them right here in this living room and dining room, turn on all the lights, raise all of the shades so that the mob can see that everyone is arrested. And the mob begins to cheer because they believe they have achieved what they set out to do.
 
 Clare
 Eleven people were brought to jail that night, including Gladys and Ossian. No one in the crowd outside was arrested. The Sweets and their friends, on the other hand, were facing serious charges. 
 
 Daniel
 The charge is first degree murder. Premeditated first degree murder. 
 
 Clare
 First degree murder seems to be based on the idea that they knew what would happen if they moved into the neighborhood. Buying the house was, apparently, the premeditation.
 
 Clare
 All 11 people were questioned repeatedly about their actions. 
 
 Daniel 
 During the interrogation, no one admits to firing into the mob, with the exception of Henry. And Henry is just telling the truth. He said he shot into that mob because he felt like his life was in danger. He said his first shot was in the air. The second shot was into the mob. (19:23.234) He didn't try to kill nobody. He was trying to scare them off because he felt as though his life was in danger. 
 
 Clare
 Regardless of Henry's confession, everyone was held on the same charge. What happened at the Sweet House quickly became news throughout the country, particularly in the Black community. 
 
 Daniel
 All of the Black publications, whether it was the Pittsburgh Courier or the Chicago Defender. They would tell of the story of Dr. Sweet, and people would really appreciate and celebrate what he did at the time, particularly Henry, because he was the one who said in it that he shot into the mob. 
 
 Clare
 The NAACP also wrote about it in Crisis Magazine. They saw immediately the importance of the case. Though originally handled by the local chapter, the national offices sent their field secretary, Walter White, to Detroit. He visited the accused in jail and vowed to defend them. 
 
 Walter White
 If the Sweets were not given adequate legal defense, if the ancient Anglo-Saxon principle that a man's home is his castle were not made applicable to the Negroes as well as others, we knew that other and even more determined attacks will be made upon the homes of Negroes throughout the country. We were equally convinced that legal affirmation that a Negro had the right to defend his home against mob assault would serve to deter other mobs in Detroit and elsewhere.
 
 Clare
 Walter White had taken a pay cut from his job as an insurance agent to work for the NAACP. 
 
 Daniel
 You've got to understand, Walter White was biracial. He probably looked more Caucasian than he did Black. 
 
 Clare
 The family history was that his great grandfather was William Henry Harrison, the ninth president of the United States. White's grandmother was an enslaved woman owned by Harrison.(21:25.58) White grew up as Black. He identified as Black. But he understood that that's not how many in society saw him. 
 
 Walter White
 I'm a Negro. My skin is white. My eyes are blue. My hair is blonde. The traits of my race are nowhere visible upon me. 
 
 Daniel
 He would infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan and report on the various issues concerning lynchings and all of the horrors that African-American experienced at the hands of the Klan. So Walter White was a tremendous asset. 
 
 Clare
 When he came to the NAACP, White was involved in many civil rights cases and championed anti-lynching legislation. He would later lead the organization for more than 25 years. He saw the shooting at the Sweet House to be an important push forward in civil rights, but he knew it wouldn't be easy.
 
 Daniel
 No white judge wanted to deal with this case. It was ex, it was political dynamite and no one wanted to lose their judgeship as a result of this case. No one but a young, aspiring Irish judge by the name of Frank Murphy.
 
 Clare
 On September 16th, bail was denied for all the defendants. Judge Frank Murphy, the presiding judge of the Recorder's Court, assigned himself the case, saying that, quote, every judge on this bench is afraid. They don't realize this is the opportunity of a lifetime to demonstrate sincere liberalism and judicial integrity at a time when liberalism is coming into its own, unquote.
 
 Clare
 Despite the judge's assurances of integrity, White was certain it was an uphill battle to prove Ossian Sweet and his friends and family had been within their rights to shoot. 
 
 Daniel
 Walter White is the brains of the legal defense. He's the one who puts together this whole band of attorneys. He's the one who monitors it. He puts his heart into it. 
 
 Walter White
 It soon became apparent that the task would be terribly difficult.(23:45.836) We sought to employ the ableist lawyers in Detroit for defense. We wanted attorneys who were not only capable, but whose standing in the community would demonstrate to the decent people in Detroit and elsewhere that the highly biased stories, which had appeared in the newspapers, were not correct. 
 
 Daniel 
 We cannot send three black men in front of an all-white jury trying to defend the Sweets. If we do, they're gonna throw them under the jail. A compromise takes place. A compromise is that they do a national search. 
 
 Clare
 There were three well-known Black Detroit attorneys representing Ossian and the others, Julian Perry, Cecil Rowlett, and Charles Mahoney. White sought two lawyers known outside the city that he hoped would join them. Arthur Garfield Hayes, a noted civil liberties attorney who had worked on many well-known cases. including the Sacco and Vanzetti trial in Massachusetts, and Clarence Darrow, likely the most famous attorney in the US. Just two years earlier, he'd kept Chicago murderers Leopold and Loeb out of the electric chair. 
 
 Daniel
 So they have these battery of attorneys and the fee is somewhere between $12,000 and $15,000, which is a small fortune. However, Clarence Darrow takes a lesser fee
 than he would typically take because of his sympathetic thoughts about African Americans. And he knew they just didn't have the money. even though it wasn't the maximum amount that Darrell and Arthur Garfield Hayes would charge, it was still a lot of money, money that the NAACP didn't have. So they had to create the Legal Defense Fund. And boy, the money started coming in. Money started coming in from churches all over America, Black churches, checks for a dollar, 50 cent, two dollars, five dollars. 
 
 Clare
 W.E.B. Du Bois saw the donations as a turning point in Black justice. 
 
 DuBois
 The American Negro went down in his pocket and for the first time in his history, put into the treasury of the NAACP an amount of money that meant that these defendants would have a chance for a fair trial. (26:16.152) justice in the United States costs money. No pauper need apply at the bar gates of our criminal courts. 
 
 Clare
 As money was raised and public support for the Sweets began to grow, there was hope, but there was also reality. And Clarence Darrow knew that it was hundreds of years of reality that they would face in the courtroom. 
 
 Clarence Darrow
 I know that if these defendants had been a white group, defending themselves from a colored mob, they never would have been arrested or tried. My clients are charged with murder, but they are really charged with being black. 
 
 Clare
 No one doubted the skills of Hayes or Darrow, but it was still a controversial decision by the NAACP. White had felt that the two lawyers, both white men, would be more relatable to an all-white jury than the three black lawyers already on the case. In the black community, the choice of white lawyers over black was particularly offensive in this case. 
 
 Daniel
 Darrow understood that coming in and he was insistent upon keeping the three black attorneys on the fence. And Dr. Sweet was adamant about that. Dr. wanted to make sure that the narrative was consistent and represented African Americans doing the work in order to make sure that the Sweets received justice. And these three men, Perry, Rowlett, and Mahoney, do a phenomenal job in placing the cultural aspect of Black America in context so that Darrell and Hayes would understand their challenge and their focus.
 
 Clare
 As they neared trial, Ossian and the other defendants were described as cheered, but not hopeful. Gladys had suffered a miscarriage and had ongoing health issues that led to her release from jail in October of 1925 on a $5,000 bond, almost $90,000 today. She would not be tried with the others and instead would travel the country to raise funds for the trial. The 10 men were not released on bail, all of them.(28:42.018)despite Henry Sweet's confession, would be tried for first degree murder. And in a very different way, Henry's confession didn't mean much to Clarence Darrow either. He was focused on what happened before the gunshots. 
 
 Clarence Darrow
 The danger of a mob is not what it does, but what it might do. Mob psychology is the most dreadful thing with which man has to contend. Its action is like the starting of a prairie fire, a match in the stubble and it spreads and spreads, devouring everything in its way. The mob was waiting to see the sacrifice of some helpless blacks. They came with malice in their hearts. 
 
 Clare
 Prosecutor Robert Toms conceded at the opening of the trial that blacks had a right to live where they wanted, but that Leon Breiner, the dead man, also had rights, chiefly the right to live. The defense focused on the mood of both the crowd and the people in the house. Hayes, who gave the opening statement, said the defendants were, quote, worried, distrustful, tortured, and apparently trapped, unquote, the night of the shooting. After the opening statements, the prosecution brought on witnesses, lots of them.
 
 Daniel
 The prosecution would bring 75 people who would perjure themselves by saying that they were present the night of the incident, but there were no more than 12 people outside of the house at any given time.(30:26.914) They would always stay within the framework of that number because they had been coached by the prosecution and the police. 
 
 Clare
 The sheer number of witnesses the state put on gave credence to Darrow's strategy. 
 
 Clarence Darrow
 Now the state claims there was no mob there that night. Gentlemen, the state has put on enough witnesses who say they were there to make a mob. 
 
 Clare
 In the trial the defense called black men who were driving near Garfield Street the night of the attack and had themselves been attacked. They also brought witnesses who could testify that the crowd was large, angry and throwing stones at the house and that the police were largely indifferent to the situation. And then they called Ossian. He testified about his feelings the night of the murder and also about how the lynching he witnessed when he was five had stayed with him, how his fears the night of the shooting were informed by his fears as a child. Prosecutor Robert Thompson stopped the testimony. He wanted to know if it mattered what Sweet had witnessed as a child. Darrow had an answer. 
 
 Clarence Darrow
 This is the question of the psychology of a race, of how everything known to a race affects its actions. What we learned as children, we remember it stays fastened in the mind. Because the defendant's actions were predicated on the psychology of his past, I ask that the testimony be admitted. 
 
 Clare
 The judge agreed and the testimony was let in. 
 
 Daniel
 And it was at that moment where the jury and every person that was inside of that room had an opportunity to understand what these black people were feeling at that very moment. So instead of looking out of rose colored glasses, they were able to see the world in black and white, realizing that the terror that stood outside was a representation of the terror (32:49.496) that black people had to experience since being in this country. And that's why they took arms.
 
 Clare
 For its part, the prosecution had called the defense, quote, fear complex theory, unquote. Prosecutor Toms told the jury, quote, Leon Breiner, peacefully chatting with his neighbor at his doorstep, enjoying his God given and inalienable right to live, is shot through the back from ambush. You can't make anything out of these facts, gentlemen of the defense, but cold blooded murder, unquote. Darrow was clear in his closing statement. The Sweets were within their rights to shoot based on the Castle Doctrine, that a man's home is his castle and he has the right to protect it against invasion. But the prosecution was equally clear. It wasn't up to the jury to solve race relations. In this case, the Sweets shot into the street in response to rocks and yelling, there was no invasion. Leon Brenner was on a porch across the street with his back towards the sweet home. It wasn't a threat, Prosecutor Toms told the jury. 
 
 Clare
 Both men pointed to an 1860 Michigan law, the People versus Augustus Pond, in which the state Supreme Court said that, quote, A man assaulted in his home is not required to retreat, but can take such means as are absolutely necessary to repel the assailant from his home or prevent his forcible entry, even to the taking of his life." The prosecution focused on whether it was a reasonable belief that the defendants were in danger. The defense asked a different question. Did the Castle Doctrine, the law in Michigan for more than 60 years, apply equally to Blacks as it did to Whites? The judge made clear how he saw the issue.
 
 Daniel (34:53.249)
 One of the things that Frank Murphy says to the jury is, Dr. Sweet has the right under the law to purchase and occupy the dwelling house on Garland Avenue as any man. Under the law, a man's home is his castle. It is his castle. And no man has the right to a sale or invade it. The Negro is now by the constitution of the United States given full equality with the white man and all rights and privileges attend him wherever he goes. So he invokes the 14th Amendment of the Constitution to the jury before they go in to deliberate.
 
 Clare
 The case went to the jury the day before Thanksgiving. The jury kept going that day and the next. They were sent turkey and all the fixings as their only connection to the holiday that was happening outside the jury room. It didn't seem to fill them with a sense of gratitude. They could be heard shouting. There was nothing anyone outside the courtroom could do but wait.
 
 Clare
 For Ossian, what had begun with such hope, a new home, a new chapter in his and Gladys's life, could end in a prison cell. And not just for him, but for his two brothers and for the friends who had spent the night at their home to offer support. For everyone, the wait was excruciating, including Clarence Darrow, who had waited for many juries to return. 
 
 Clarence Darrow
 Hope is the salvation of the world in as much as it has any salvation. 
 
 Clare
 The jury deliberated for 46 hours and then came back to the judge and said it was impossible for them to reach a verdict. In the case against Osceon and Henry, seven of the jurors would have voted for manslaughter, five for acquittal. But they also split on the other defendants, 10 for acquittal, two for manslaughter. Judge Murphy declared a mistrial.
 
 Daniel (37:04.27)
 But then the prosecution was hungry for a conviction. Robert Towns was an interesting fellow. He had the weight of the world on his shoulder. And we will later find out that he was a member of the NAACP in his later career. Yeah. He supported the NAACP, but nonetheless, he had the pressure of white Detroit on his shoulders.
 
 Clare
 Henry Sweet, Ossian's brother would go first. His trial started April 19th, 1926. 
 
 Daniel
 Henry, why? Because he was the one who said that he shot into the mob. He was the easy one, the low hanging fruit. 
 
 Clare
 The evidence was much the same. The witnesses said the same things. Then it was time for the closing arguments. 
 
 Daniel
 And boy, the Clarence, they're close.
 
 Clarence Darrow
 Gentlemen, these black men shot. Whether any bullets from their guns hit Briner, I do not care. I will not discuss it. It is passing strange that the bullet went through him, went directly through, not as if it was shot from some higher place. It was not the bullet that came from Henry Sweet's rifle, that is plain. It might have come from the house, I do not know, gentlemen, and I do not care. There are bigger issues in this case than that. The right to defend your home. The right to defend your person is as sacred a right as any human being could fight for and as sacred a cause as any jury could sustain. That issue not only involves the defendants in this case, but it involves every man who wants to live, every man who wants freedom to work and to breathe. It is an issue worth fighting for and worth dying for. And it is an issue worth the attention of this jury, who have a chance that is given to few juries to pass upon a real case that will mean something in the history of a race.
 
 Clare (39:25.56)
 Darrow's closing went on for eight hours. It appears not to have been rehearsed, but came from the heart. At times it seems like he would be concluding, but then he would think of something else and go on. It was like he didn't want to leave anything unsaid. Judge Murphy, who would go on to become a US Supreme Court justice, would later tell a friend about witnessing Darrow's closing, quote, this is the greatest experience of my life.
 
 Daniel
 That was Clarence Darrow at his best. I will never hear anything like it again. He is the most Christ-like man I have ever known." Unquote. And the interesting thing about him was he was an atheist, right? He's an atheist. How about that? Saying that of an atheist. 
 
 Clare
 While the last jury had taken 46 hours, this one came back in four. And this time they had a verdict. Not guilty.
 
 Clare
 It's said that both Clarence Darrow and Henry Sweet had tears rolling down their cheeks. This would be it. The not guilty verdict had convinced prosecutor Robert Thoms to dismiss the charges against the others. 
 
 Daniel
 The fact of the matter is when it happened, black people didn't just move into every neighborhood they wanted to in 1925 and 1930s. It wasn't until 1948 that restrictive covenants was struck down by the Supreme Courts. 
 
 Clare
 But despite it not opening the floodgates to more fair housing, the Sweet Case did make clear that Black families had the same rights to defend their homes as white. The Castle Doctrine applied equally. 
 
 Daniel
 The framers of the Constitution understood that at some point in time, slavery would never exist in this country. And the people who were former slaves had to be included.(41:27.778) And if they were included, they have to be considered citizens. Well, this was the test of whether or not the hopes and wishes of the framers of the constitution would be a reality. It passed the test. It also spoke to all of my ancestors who came over here in bondage who suffered.
 
 Clare
 It would seem that finally there was a happy ending, but there wasn't. First, Leon Brenner's wife sued the Sweets for wrongful death. That suit was eventually dismissed. Then there was more. 
 
 Daniel
 The Sweets win the battle, but they lose the war. 
 
 Clare
 Gladys and Iva were both diagnosed with tuberculosis. It's likely Gladys contracted the disease while in jail and passed it on to her daughter. Iva died just shy of her second birthday and Gladys went to Tucson, Arizona because at the time the drier weather was all that could be offered as a cure. She died in November of 1928, only 27 years old. Henry also contracted tuberculosis and died in 1939. Ossian ran a hospital in the heart of the black community in Detroit. But he began to lose money from land deals he'd made, and he would eventually lose almost everything. 
 
 Ossian
 If I had known how bitter that neighborhood was going to be, I wouldn't have taken that house as a gift. But after I had bought it, I felt I could never again respect myself if I allowed a gang of hoodlums to keep me out of it.
 
 Clare
 Dr. Sweet took his own life in March of 1960.
 
 Daniel (43:28.64)
 All we wanted was what every American wanted. The opportunity to be who God called us to be.That's what September 9th, 1925 was about.
 
 Clare
 Ossian lived for a time on Garland Street, but later bought a drug store and lived in an apartment upstairs. The house was sold in 1958 to Daniel's parents. It's now on the National Register of Historic Places.
 
 Clare (44:03.566)
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