Arc of Justice

Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age is a 2004 book by historian

great migration

. While living in Detroit he eventually moves out of the ghetto and he and his wife move into an all-white middle-class neighborhood. When racist whites attack the Sweets' home, a white man is killed. Sweet and his family are persecuted by the legal system.

The book won the 2004 National Book Award for Nonfiction and was a finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for History.^[1]

Narrative

The book tells the account of

Walter Francis White of the NAACP assisted in the case and they helped to establish a legal defense fund to assist the Sweets and other civil rights cases throughout the country. The NAACP was able to secure the services of legendary defense attorney Clarence Darrow to lead the defense team representing the eleven defendants. The first trial ended with a hung jury

. The prosecution chose to try each defendant separately during the second trial. The second trial, 8 months later, involved Ossian's brother Henry Sweet as the defendant and he was found not guilty by the jury, the prosecutor chose not to prosecute the other 10 defendants after the not guilty verdict.

Ossian Sweet House in Detroit, Michigan

pictured in 2021

Reception

The National Book Foundation awarded Arc of Justice it's 2004 book of the year award in the non-fiction category stating that Arc of Justice is "A history that is at once an intense courtroom drama, a moving biography, and an engrossing look at race in America in the early 20th century."^[2] Writing for The New York Times , Robert F. Worth stated that Boyle's book is "by far the most cogent and thorough account of the trial and its aftermath" and he praised the way "Boyle vividly recreates the energy and menace of Detroit in 1925". But Worth criticized the book for not delving deeply into the motives of the white residents stating: "working-class whites are the only people who remain more or less faceless in Boyle's narrative".^[3] Kirkus Reviews, in a positive review, commended Boyle for establishing an early tension that "after instruction on some African American history, culminates in a classic courtroom drama starting the Great Defender himself, Clarence Darrow. Further, Kirkus states that Boyle presents a "balanced, considered portrait of Sweet".^[4]

References

^ "Pulitzer Prize for History". www.pulitzer.org.
^ "Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age". National Book Foundation.
^ Worth, Robert F. (12 September 2004). "'Arc of Justice': I Swear It Was in Self-Defense (Published 2004)". The New York Times.
^ Kirkus. "ARC OF JUSTICE | Kirkus Reviews".

[1] "Pulitzer Prize for History". www.pulitzer.org.

[2] "Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age". National Book Foundation.

[3] Worth, Robert F. (12 September 2004). "'Arc of Justice': I Swear It Was in Self-Defense (Published 2004)". The New York Times.

[4] Kirkus. "ARC OF JUSTICE | Kirkus Reviews".

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