Who Was Dr. Ossian Sweet?

By any measure, Ossian Sweet’s life was a success story. Born in Bartow, Florida, in 1895, he was a grandson of slaves, and the oldest of 10 children of a share cropper and his wife.
His supportive parents sent young Ossian, at age 13, to Xenia, Ohio, to complete his education. This was an ambitious undertaking for the Sweet family as the typical schooling for blacks in Barstow, Florida was four months a year, to the eighth grade only, in an inferior school. Eventually, Ossian graduated from Wilberforce University in 1917. It is worth noting that this was an exceptional accomplishment, since, out of some 10 million blacks in the United States, fewer than 2,000 were enrolled in college.
Poor eyesight kept him out of World War I, so he was able to continue his education in medical school at Howard University in Washington, DC, receiving his MD degree in 1921. During his years at Howard, he was caught in the middle of the Washington race riots of 1919.
Upon graduation, no white hospital would take him as an intern, no white patients would seek him out, and, like all blacks, he could not join the American Medial Association.  Since he had once spent a summer in Detroit as a bellhop at a hotel, he moved to that city, where a large black population provided a pool of patients. Over half a million blacks had migrated North in 1917 alone; Detroit’s black population had increased by 600% in the decade between 1910 and 1920. Opportunity, then, for a new medical school graduate, seemed to exist in cities like Detroit.  Read more….
As his practice flourished, Dr. Sweet sought to move his family to a nicer home in a good neighborhood, as was being done by other prosperous blacks in Detroit.  In the 1920’s there was no real integration in cities like Detroit, so it was difficult just to find a realtor who would help him find a home, not to mention a homeowner who was willing to sell to a black family.

The story continues:
Dr. Sweet bought a home for his family commensurate with his status—the one at 2905 Garland. Ironically, the family selling the home—the Smith’s—was interracial, but Mr. Smith was so light-skinned that his neighbors assumed he was white; Sweet anticipated no troubles. Indeed, his wife’s parents lived in a white neighborhood. However, as soon as the residents near 2905 Garland learned of his race, trouble began. The Smiths were condemned for selling the home to a black and they warned the Sweets of the difficulties they would face. As soon as he purchased the residence, a block club was formed to keep him out. Dr. Sweet consulted other professional blacks who attempted integration, and realized that the Detroit police would likely offer little protection. Nevertheless, he informed the police of his intent to move into his new home. He expected trouble, so on his first night in this home—September 8, 1925—he asked his two brothers and a number of friends, including a federal narcotics agent, to spend the night with him. He and his friends prepared for hostilities by arming themselves with six revolvers, two rifles, a shotgun and, perhaps, as many as two thousand rounds of ammunition.
 A crowd of whites gathered at the corner of Garland and Charlevoix on that evening, but there were eleven police officers present and no violence. Dr. Sweet still feared trouble would escalate, so he asked an additional three friends to join him for the evening of September 9. At some point, the crowd apparently became aggressive, loudly proclaimed that they would drive the Sweets out and began stoning the home. Dr. Sweet and the other armed men inside believed that the home was under siege, that they might be burned to death when the house was incinerated and that the Detroit police would offer no assistance. Shots rang out from the second-story dormer that you see. Instantly, one member of the crowd on Garland, Leon Breiner, was killed and another, Eric Hougberg, wounded in the thigh. At this point, police officers rushed the home and arrested all occupants, who were held without bail.
The city’s police chief demanded first degree murder charges but before going to trial, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People realized the fundamental importance of these events and came to Detroit to protect Dr. Sweet’s rights. Lynching was still frequently used in the South to kill blacks who were presumed guilty of criminal behavior or violating local racial mores. The NAACP feared that lynching would spread to the North and that blacks who did such things as moving into a white neighborhood would be killed. Spurning local black lawyers, the NAACP recruited former University of Michigan student, Clarence Darrow, to defend the occupants of Dr. Sweet’s home.

  More about Dr. Sweet’s home and its story..

Dr. Sweet, with the able representation by the famous Clarence Darrow, was eventually acquitted of the crime of murder.  This litigation was a tremendous victory for the civil rights movement since it asserted the right of African-Americans in the North to defend their person and property, even if it required the use of violence.  The basis for this acquittal:
THE PEOPLE VS. AUGUSTUS POND
The legal basis upon which the Ossian Sweet case was tried was the 1860 ruling of the Michigan Supreme Court in the case of The People vs. Augustus Pond.
“A man assaulted in his dwelling is not obliged to retreat, but use such means as are absolutely necessary to repel the assailant from his house, or prevent his forcible entry, even to the taking of his life. And, if the assault or breaking is felonious, the homicide becomes, and, at common law, justifiable, and not merely excusable.
“The law does not require the necessity for taking human life to be one arising out of actual and imminent danger in order to excuse the slayer, but he may act upon a belief, arising from appearances which give him reasonable cause that the danger is actual and imminent, although he may turn out to be mistaken. The guilt of the accused must depend upon the circumstances as they appear to him and he will not be held responsible for knowledge of the facts, unless his ignorance arises from fault or negligence.”
More about the case of Augustus Pond vs The People
Dr. Ossian Sweet was a black man in a racially-divided city in the 1920’s.  George Zimmerman is a “white Hispanic” accused of racism almost 100 years later.  It is ironic, is it not, that their defense was based on similar case law?  That the right of a man to defend himself – even taking a human life – cannot be denied, if he believes that the danger is actual and imminent, even if he may turn out to be mistaken.  The point is – It doesn’t matter if you are black or white, or if your assailant is black or white, you have the right to use deadly force to defend your own life.

For an excellent overview of Self Defense Immunity law in the state of Florida, see yesterday’s post at Legal Insurrection:
https://legalinsurrection.com/2013/07/floridas-self-defense-immunity-law-how-it-really-works/
His final remarks, good news for Florida citizens:
“Also, today I had the opportunity to speak with Florida Attorney Eric Roberts, who is currently leading on a case before the 5th District Court of Appeals (the same one that oversaw the Zimmerman trial) in which he is arguing for procedural changes self-defense immunity that will make its application even more favorable to the law-abiding armed citizen. As I learn more about that case over the next few days, I’ll post up about that, as well.”