Arc of Justice by Kevin Boyle tells the story of Dr. Ossian Sweet, an African American physician who has recently moved to Detroit with his new wife Gladys after getting great educations at Wilberforce and Howard Universities. The year is 1925, and Dr. Sweet has moved into an all-white neighborhood, angering his neighbors. As a result of their anger, a violent mob forms around the Sweet house. And Dr. Sweet and his family are forced to defend their home from the mob of angry neighbors, all of whom are white. But when one of the members of the mob is killed, Dr. Sweet is brought up on murder charges. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) hires a well-known and brilliant defense attorney named Clarence Darrow to defend Ossian and the others who were involved with the mob. Dr. Sweet’s arrest, however, isn’t based on facts and the law; instead, the case is based on Detroit’s politics and the race relations in the city after black people had migrated north following the U.S. Civil War.
Dr. Sweet’s defense attorney shows that there was obvious racial bias in his accusation and arrest, and the accusation and arrest of his brother, who was also picked up for the death of the white member of the mob (Dr. Sweet’s wife and eight other people were arrested under similar circumstances). The prosecution, on the other hand, sets out to show that a mob didn’t exist and that the gunshots which hit the person were unprovoked. The first jury comes back and there is a mistrial. Darrow leaves and then returns to defend Dr. Sweet’s brother, Henry, for his murder charge. Henry is found “not guilty” of the crime he is accused of, ensuring that everyone accused of committing a crime the night the mob came to Dr. Sweet’s house would be not guilty. Boyle shows how the systematically racist justice system in the United States brought down black people. Black people are humans, but many white people in the 1920s in the United States perpetrated oppressive and violent acts against African Americans. And when a successful black person goes to a white community, Boyle also shows the lengths to which racist people went to remove them from their neighborhood. Dr. Sweet’s mistrial and subsequent acquittal show how the U.S. had become more liberal during the 1920s and enabled Detroit–and cities around the country–to be less segregated.
Boyle’s book also shows how significant an impact the NAACP had on ensuring equality in the United States. They helped Dr. Sweet and helped the country become a more accepting place, something which Boyle shows the country desperately needed.
Arc of Justice is a thematically complex and engaging book. Perhaps the book’s most significant theme is the racial turmoil that existed between white and black communities. The 1920s were a time of tremendous racial turmoil, and Dr. Sweet and his family were at the center of it. Through Dr. Sweet’s story, Boyle examined how the Great Migration of black people from the south to the north caused racial tensions to inflame and turmoil to significantly increase. People in the north, especially wealthy people, were not used to dealing with black people. And people have a hard time dealing with change, as exemplified by the white mob which attacked Dr. Sweet’s home. The book also explores themes of identity and community in America, division, friendship, the differences between native-born Americans and recent immigrants, the organization of racism (like the Klu Klux Klan), and relationships.
