2905 Garland St., Detroit, Michigan. County/parish: Wayne.
Added to the National Register of Historic Places April 04, 1985. NRIS 85000696.
1 contributing building.
The Ossian H. Sweet House is a privately owned house located at 2905 Garland Street in Detroit, Michigan. The house was designed by Maurice Herman Finkel, and in 1925 it was bought by its second owner, physician Ossian Sweet, an African American. Soon after he moved in, the house was the site of a confrontation when a white mob of about 1,000 gathered in protest of the Sweet family moving into the formerly all-white neighborhood. Rocks thrown by the mob broke windows, and someone in the house fired out, wounding one man in the mob and killing a bystander. Sweet and ten other persons from the house were arrested for murder.
Contacted by the NAACP, nationally known attorney Clarence Darrow joined their defense team. After a mistrial, in the second trial the first defendant was acquitted. The prosecution dropped charges against the remaining defendants. The case was considered important as part of the civil rights movement and establishing freedom of residence. The house was designated as a Michigan State Historic Site in 1975 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.
(read more...)National Park Service documentation: https://catalog.archives.gov/id/25341110