It was 100 years ago when Dr.

Ossian Sweet, an African American physician, moved his family into a white neighborhood on Detroit's east side.

Shortly after an angry white mob gathered and threw rocks and bottles at Dr.

Sweet's house.

One of the attackers was shot and killed in the subsequent murder trial for Dr.

Sweet made Civil Rights history.

The home is now a national historical landmark and a memorial park just opened up next door.

Joining me now is the CEO and founder of the Dr.

Ossian H. Sweet Foundation, Daniel Baxter.

Welcome to American Black Journal.

- Oh, thank you, Steven.

It is definitely a delight and plum pleasing pleasure to be here today.

- Yes.

I'm used to talking to you about elections.

- Right.

- Because you have been part of the elections process here in the city for as long as I can remember.

- Yeah.

40 years.

- Is it 40 years?

- 40 years, yes.

- Yeah.

But this is a really great thing to talk about, a different thing.

I didn't know in fact that you were as involved with this as you are.

- Yes, yes.

- That's really great.

- I grew up in the Sweet house.

Parents bought it in 1958 from Dr.

Sweet.

- That's incredible.

All right.

So let's talk about the importance of this landmark and this story in Detroit.

Now, it was a hundred years ago, it was a different city.

We were in a different place.

But there are echoes, I think, of all of the narratives here that we live with every day in Detroit.

- Yeah, so I think that the significance of this story, particularly today, is that we have an opportunity not just to hear about it, but experience it.

You have the Sweet house, you have the Memorial Park next door, which is really an outside classroom that tells the story about Dr.

Sweet and what he and his family encountered.

And it's so important that we share that story today because the direction that our country is going in seems like it's taken us back to that time.

And the only time that you have the opportunity to really repeat your history is when you don't know about it.

- When you forget about it.

- That's right.

Right, right.

So that's why it's so important to share that story today so that people become sensitized to some of the issues that impacted not just Detroit, but America, and how we were able to overcome them through litigation, through court cases and the like.

- Yeah, the story of what happened when Dr.

Sweet, you know, bought the house and moved into the neighborhood, is so layered with different issues that we have in America.

I mean, first you have this neighborhood that is unwelcoming and angry that an African American is living there.

You have violence that breaks out as a result of that.

And then you have this trial of the doctor himself as a result.

Let's just go through for people who don't know what happened, and I guess what lessons we can draw from it.

- Yeah.

So, Dr.

Sweet, he graduates from Wilberforce University, then Howard University, while he's at Wilberforce, he hangs out in Detroit and he recognizes the growing African-American community and the fact that they don't have access to quality healthcare.

So he figures that he should start his practice in Detroit to provide that, and at the same time, make a nice sum of money.

So he moves to Detroit, he falls in love with a young lady by the name of Gladys Sweet.

They get married.

He goes over to Europe to study the impact of radiation on the human anatomy under Nobel Peace Prize winning Madame Curie, he comes back to Detroit and he's living with his in-laws.

The house is crowded because it's not just Dr.

Sweet, it's his two brothers, Henry and Otis that are living there.

He's a physician, a man of prominence.

So he comes across this home that's on sale on the corner of Garland and Charlevoix.

The people who own the house are an interracial couple.

The Smiths, the wife is white, the husband is black, but he's passing.

Nobody ever questions it.

They sell him the house for $18,500, three times the amount of the value because of the color of their skin.

Dr.

Sweet has no problem with that.

He makes a $3,500 deposit on the house, and they decide to move in.

The problem is the following month, three African Americans run into mob violence.

Dr.

A.L.

Turner moves into a house on Spokane Street.

The mob comes and takes his home from him.

Then Vollington Bristol builds a home on American Street.

The mob comes and destroys that.

And then John Fletcher, a waiter, buys a house on Stoepel Street, and the same thing happens to him.

Now, Dr.

Sweet's afraid.

So they come up with a plan to move into the house on Garland on September 8th.

Why September 8th?

It's the day after Labor Day, the day where men will be going back to work and where the mothers will be taking their children to school.

They're thinking that people will not be interested in a black guy moving into the house on the corner.

So they move in on September 8th, crowds would gather, but not much happens that day.

On September 9th at eight o'clock, all hell breaks out.

The mob surround their home, they rush the house, shots ring out, and a man is killed.

The Detroit Police Department comes in, they arrest everybody, charged them with first degree murder.

It's not just Dr.

Sweet and his wife.

But there are 11 people in this group.

So the NAACP intercedes, hires Clarence Darrell.

Darrell comes to Detroit, stands before Frank Murphy, and affirms a man's home is his castle.

- Is his castle.

- Whether he's white or black.

And this trial begins at the end of October, runs all the way through Thanksgiving.

The turning point of the case is when they asked Dr.

Sweet to testify, and the co-counsel Arthur Garfield Hayes asked him the poignant question, "hat did you think when you saw the crowd?"

And Dr.

Sweet says, "When I opened the door and I saw the mob, I realized that I was facing the same mob that had hounded my people throughout this entire history.

In my mind, I was pretty confident of what I was up against.

I had my back against the wall filled with a peculiar fear, the fear of one who knows the history of my race.

I know what mobs had done to my people before."

And with that testimony, he would tell the story of how African Americans have had to struggle with mob violence ever since we've been in this country.

- Forever.

- Right.

And that was the first time that all white male jury had an opportunity to take off their rose color glasses and see the world in black and white the same way black people saw it and understand the psychology of the defendants when that mob came.

And that was a turning point.

- Yeah.

- That after that case, after that trial, Murphy would turn the case over to the jury.

They would come back with no decision.

Murphy would declare it a mistrial, throw the case out.

And then in April, Dr.

Sweet's younger brother Henry, would be retried because he's the one who actually testifies that he shot into the mob.

But after two hours, the jury will come back with a not guilty verdict.

And that's the story of the case and that's why it's so important to talk about that.

- And and it's this incredible moment of leveling that playing field, right?

This idea that African Americans have the same right to defend themselves and their homes as white Americans do.

- Yes, yes.

And that the key to that was the 14th Amendment and the equal protection clause.

- That's right.

- And that was the biggest objective of the defense was to humanize the Sweets.

and make sure that the jury understood that they were United States citizens and all rights- - Just like everybody else.

privileges of citizenships attend them wherever they go.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- So you grew up in this house some years later.

Talk about what that does for you and how that history, I guess, visits on you and your childhood.

- Yeah.

So as a kid, you don't think much of it.

You know, people knock on your door, tour buses stop by, and it's just a- - Just what happens.

- A natural thing that happens on a regular basis, right?

But as you grow older and as life starts lifeing, you really understand the importance of that case.

You know, in 2020 during the presidential election down at Hunting, at TCF, then, you know, the mob came.

Just like it did with Dr.

Sweet.

And that was the first time that I had ever seen something like that.

But I was reminded of it through that story.

And the beauty of that situation was that in 1925, part of the mob was the Detroit Police Department.

- Right, right.

- You know, those police officers allowed for that to happen.

But in 2020, DPD stood up against that situation that occurred, in Huntington place, then TCF.

So that was a learning lesson for me.

That was an opportunity to really appreciate the fact that because of that case, I stand on those shoulders.

And the world had changed to a point where at least the Detroit Police Department and the courts- - And the courts, right.

- After that incident occurred, stood up for justice.

- That happens 95 years after what happened to Dr.

Sweet.

Now we're a hundred.

- Yes.

- What should we be thinking about?

What should we be doing as Detroiters, as African Americans to make sure that those lessons stay in place?

- Well, I think that you'd have to go back a little bit further.

And bring up the name of Frederick Douglass.

One of the last things that he said before his death, he said that we have to agitate, agitate and agitate.

You know, I think Reverend Anthony says it a lot, "Freedom ain't free."

You know, it's something that we have to actively engage on a day-to-day basis in every area and aspect of our lives.

Whether it is voting at the polls on election day, whether it's paying our taxes, whether it is moving into a new community.

We have to be cognizant of the fact that these opportunities that we enjoy on a day-to-day basis came by blood, sweat, and tears.

- Yes, they did.

- And if we forget that, if we take it for granted, those same opportunities that we enjoy today can be taken away from us.

- Yeah, you know, one of the things I love about this story is what happens to the house now.

Right, and this park, right, that's next to it.

I think parks are such an important way to cast spaces into the future 'cause who enjoys parks the most?

It's our kids.

- It's our children.

- You see kids playing in this spot where this thing happened a hundred years later.

That's incredible.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, one of the things that I enjoy the most is when I get a phone call from a high school asking to come to tour the home.

Whether it's Cass Tech, Southeastern or any of the local schools.

And when the students come and they actually engage, the last group that I had came from the University of Liggett, you know, a very diverse school.

And I just applaud that administration for bringing those children there so that they can understand the legacy of Dr.

Sweet, understand the world in the context of history, so that as they grow older, they'll be more sensitive to each person.

Whether they're black, white, or whatever they are.

So that's what's so important about that park, because even if you don't get a chance to go inside of the house, you can stop at each station and learn.

- And learn.

- Learn about that history and grow from it.

- Yeah.

All right, Daniel, it's always great to talk to you.

It's wonderful to have this conversation with you after so many about elections.

- Yes.

Yes.

Absolutely.

Thanks for being here on the American Black Journal.

- Man, thank you so much.

I appreciate you.

All right.

Keep up the great work.