Ossian Sweet

Ossian Sweet ( /ˈɒʃən ˈswiːt/; 30 October 1895–20 March 1960) was an American physician. He is most notable for his self defense in 1925 of his newly-purchased home in a white neighborhood against a mob attempting to force him out of the neighborhood in Detroit, Michigan, and the subsequent acquittal by an all-white jury of murder charges against him, his family, and friends who helped defend his home, in what came to be known as the Sweet Trials. Sweet was born the second son to Henry Sweet and Dora Devaughn in Bartow, Florida just eight days before the death of his oldest brother, Oscar. Henry Sweet was a former slave from Florida and was able to buy land in Bartow in 1898, where he moved his entire family. There they lived in a small...