Ossian Sweet Defends His Detroit Home; NAACP and Darrow Win Acquittal

Dr. Ossian Sweet, a Black physician, purchased a home in a white Detroit neighborhood in September 1925. When a white mob of hundreds surrounded the house, Sweet and friends fired shots from within, killing one white man. Sweet and ten others were charged with murder. The NAACP hired Clarence Darrow as defense counsel. After two trials, all defendants were acquitted by November 1926. The case established a precedent for Black self-defense and was a landmark NAACP legal campaign demonstrating the organization's growing power to contest violence through the courts.