Kevin Boyle: ARC OF JUSTICE

Ossian Sweet, after working his way through college and medical school, bought a modest house in a white working-class Detroit neighborhood. Dr. Sweet and his friends were prepared to defend the family's right to live in it. A day after they moved in, a rock-throwing mob was stunned by gunfire coming from a second-story window of the bungalow. One man was killed, another injured. Police did nothing to restrain the white mob and later denied even seeing a crowd near the house. They were, however, quick to arrest and charge with murder Dr. and Mrs. Sweet and nine others.

The first trial ended in a hung jury. For the second, the defense brought in Clarence Darrow, who gave "one of his most spectacular courtroom performances" in what was "one of the great civil rights battles of the century," as Robert F. Worth wrote in a New York Times review.

Kevin Boyle, an associate professor of history at Ohio State University, portrays the events and trials so vividly that ARC OF JUSTICE received the 2004 National Book Award for nonfiction. As you'll see, an excellent choice.

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