National Book Award Non Fiction Winner
Arc of Justice
by Kevin Boyle
Summary
A narrative history of the 1925 Detroit case in which Black physician Ossian Sweet defended his newly purchased home from a white mob and was tried for murder after a member of the crowd was killed. Boyle reconstructs the trial, in which Clarence Darrow led the defense, while situating it within the Great Migration and the rise of northern housing segregation. The book renders a forgotten landmark in civil rights history with novelistic detail.
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Historical Context & Significance
The trial featured Clarence Darrow at the height of his powers; Boyle used the case to show how "housing segregation" was the true architect of the modern American city.