Some Lessons from Black History

On September 8, 1925 Dr. Ossian Sweet moved his family into their new two- story, brick home on the corner of Garland and Charlevoix on Detroit's east side.

A prominent and successful gynecologist, the ambitious, hard-working Ossian Sweet was a graduate of Howard University medical school in Washington DC, having paid his tuition by firing furnaces, shoveling snow and waiting tables. He also spent time studying and working in Europe -- including a stint with nobel prize winner Madame Curie in Paris -- before settling in Detroit and starting both a family and a private practice.

One might expect that Dr. Sweet would be out of place in the poor, working class neighborhood. And he definitely was. However, it was not so much because of his noticeably greater wealth and education than his mostly poor and illiterate neighbors, but rather because he was black and they were white. A mob of hundreds that had gathered in the schoolyard across the street grew increasingly ugly. The Waterworks Park Improvement Association, as they called themselves, had driven another black doctor, a surgeon by the name of Turner, out of his home on Spokane Avenue some weeks before.

Anticipating trouble, a dozen police officers cordoned off the area for three blocks around and walked up and down the street between the mob and the Sweet residence.

In the midst of the growing tension the Sweet family did their best to maintain an air of normalcy. Mrs. Sweet was in the kitchen preparing dinner and several family and friends were helping unpack, when the crowd started howling and stones began pelting the house.

Dr. Sweet grabbed a gun and dashed to an upstairs window to get a better -- and safer -- view of what was going on outside his new home. Just as he saw a car with his dentist brother, Henry, and a family friend named Davis pull up to the curb a rock smashed through the window showering him in shards.

The now terrified doctor ran back downstairs to let his brother and their friend into the house as the crowd was screaming: "Here's niggers! Get them! Get them!"

That's when the first shot rang out. In the ensuing pandemonium no one is exactly certain how or in what order events then unfolded.

It is certain that six of the 11 people inside the house fired their weapons, as did at least one police officer outside who in fact emptied his revolver. Two people in the mob were struck -- one fatally. The police, who until gunfire erupted had been little more than spectators, stormed the house and arrested everyone inside charging them all with murder.

The sensational case polarized the city, but as chance would have it, ended up assigned to a judge whose integrity and personal courage would one day make him a Michigan legend. "This is the opportunity of a lifetime to demonstrate sincere liberalism," remarked the unflappable presiding Judge Frank Murphy, who immediately released Mrs. Sweet on bail.

Nor were the defendants wanting for high-powered legal representation. Irrepressible champion of society's downtrodden, Clarence Darrow, came into Detroit to handle the case. Darrow's legendary eloquence and craft were very much in evidence in his impassioned defense of the Sweets. This pioneer in the cause of "equal protection before the law" spent three weeks on jury selection alone -- most of it in a painstakingly detailed recounting of the history of the black man in America.

A Detroit Free Press reporter said at the time: "When I was assigned to cover the trial I had the average prejudice against Negroes. I give Clarence Darrow credit for destroying my race hatred."

Following a seven week trial and three days of often acrimonious deliberations by the all white jury, Judge Murphy ruled that a verdict could not be reached and declared a mistrial. Prosecutors decided to retry only Ossian's brother, Henry, who had freely admitted firing his gun.

At this second trial, attorney Darrow, not only didn't deny the fact that his sole remaining client may indeed have fired the fatal shot, but argued that the defendant was fully justified and acting in self-defense. The second jury (also all white) took barely three hours to return a "Not Guilty" verdict.

As a consequence of all of this the Ku Klux Klan -- which operated much more openly in those days -- lobbied for and got the first round of restrictive gun legislation in Michigan. The Public Acts of 1927 included the requirement that citizens obtain government issued "purchase permits" following mandatory "safety inspections," and even then that the opportunity to legally carry the weapon be granted only at the whim of (unaccountable) county "gun boards." Following racial unrest in major American cities across the country in the early to mid 60's -- culminating in "the long, hot summer" of 1967 -- the next round of restrictions came out the federal government in the form of the Gun Control Act of 1968. This legislation was actually modeled on the German Weapons Law of 1938 enacted by the Nazi government.

A revealing feature of the contemporary gun control movement has been the persistent drive to ban inexpensive handguns often disparagingly called "Saturday Night Specials" -- an epithet based on an old racist line that any kind of riotous going-on was a "Niggertown Saturday Night." And, indeed it is pretty obvious that, if not strictly minorities, it is at the very least, poor people who are being targeted by a ban on inexpensive weapons.

Of course, none of this has proven effective in stemming violent crime because criminals, by definition, do not respect the law, whatever it might say.

Nevertheless, those whose sacred cause is to finally and fully disarm the law-abiding in the deluded belief that this will somehow impact the criminal population have discovered a new tactic.

Since courts have been unwilling and legislatures unable to accomplish their goal, several major cities have decided that perhaps the marketplace itself can be choked off by civil litigation holding manufacturers responsible for the misuse of their products.

An announcement that the hometown of Dr. Ossian Sweet is following suit is expected soon. Had it come a couple of weeks ago it would have provided a tragically ironic end to Black History Month. For, as Jews have already discovered, disarming a people is only the first phase in attempting to end their history entirely.

Tim O'Brien is the Executive Director of the Libertarian Party of Michigan.