Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age by Kevin Boyle, Holt Paperbacks

by Kevin Boyle

An electrifying story of the sensational murder trial that divided a city and ignited the civil rights struggleIn 1925, Detroit was a smoky swirl of jazz and speakeasies, assembly lines and fistfights. The advent of automobiles had brought workers from around the globe to compete for manufacturing ...

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Genres: History, Nonfiction, American History

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Reviews

[Chris Jaffe · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellently executed history of a racial incident in 1920s Detroit. Ossain Sweet, a black doctor, attempts to move into a white neighborhood, only to be met with a mob. He has some black friends and acquientences at his house the first night or two, as well as police protection in the street. However, on the second night, rocks are thrown, and one of the people in the Sweet house fires into the crowd with a gun, killing one and injuring another white.

That sets off a trial that is the the main focus of the book. It also traces Sweet's life up until that moment, and how he tried to embody the notion of the "Talented Tenth" in the black community. The trial got national attention, in part because Clarence Darrow, fresh off the Scopes Monkey Trial, agreed to serve as the defense attorney for the Sweets. Oh, and the trial took place during a hotly contested mayoral race in Detroit, in which one side openly courted KKK support. The case and its attention caused a raft of fundraising to arise for the NAACP, which allowed it to create a civil rights defense fund, which later evolved into the organization's legal infrastructure that toppled Plessy v. Ferguson.

The Sweets eventually won the case and lived in the house, but life of Dr. Sweet and his family would not be happily ever after.

It's a very fine overview, and brings to light this largely forgotten incident.

[Noah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this much less than I expected to. Too much of it was using Ossian Sweet as a way to tell the whole story of the Great Migration, which was probably a good choice at the time but, turning back to this after say Warmth of Over Suns, felt repetitive but more forced. The back half, where Clarence Darrow and Walter White and Frank Murphy all appear, was better, but I still never quite got the sense of perspective I would have wanted as to why this event was importantly shaping of a certain swath of American liberalism.

[Lily Young · Rating 3 out of 5]

Had to read it for school, it was good and well written just not my cup of tea

[Noura · Rating 4 out of 5]

I truly enjoyed this so much. The way the story of this case is told makes it feel almost like a narrative yet somehow manages to make sure that nothing is sensationalized. There is such a weird line that authors of history have to walk where most of the time everything feels so flat and clinical. I was refreshed to see a break from that trend with this book. The intense content of this book becomes more digestible to a reader because of this and I am grateful for it. I could literally go on forever about this.

[Cyrus Gazdar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read it for an American history class. Great book, lots of suspense and all the characters are extremely well written and have a lot of depth. Also a great representation of broader systemic injustices during the Jim Crow era of America