"A Place of One's Own: The Quest for Home Ownership" pp. 842-843

Even a hundred years ago, it has always been the dream of Americans to own their own home.  Unfortunately this was more of a challenge for immigrants and the black population.  Racial boundaries were set by white-property owners in the 1920s.  Even though a law for segregated housing was voted down in 1917, it didn’t prevent the racism and violence to keep neighborhoods “all-white.”  For example in Detroit, mortgages for blacks were turned down by banks, restrictive covenants not to sell homes to blacks were authorized by whites, and/or blacks were not shown homes by real estate agents  in white neighborhoods.  Whites were violent to black families who may have been able to avert any of the aforementioned.  According to, “A Place of One’s Own: The Quest for Home Ownership,” Dr. Ossian Sweet succumbed to white violence after purchasing a home inside a white neighborhood.  As Dr. Sweet and his family moved into their home with the assistance of nine others, violence erupted when white men mobbed around their home shouting obscenities.  Dr. Sweet had armed himself in preparation for such violence, and shots were fired toward the white crowd killing one and injuring two.  The police indicted all eleven blacks (including Sweet) for murder.  On Dr. Sweet’s behalf, Clarence Darrow was hired by the NAACP to be their defense lawyer.  The first trial ended in mistrial and not guilty verdicts were given in the second trial.  Darrow was able to justify Dr. Sweet’s actions as self/property defense.  The neighborhood around Dr. Sweet’s home was still primary white after he lived in his home for twenty-five years.  Detroit was a very segregated city, and so was the rest of America for many decades afterward.  “Home sweet home,” for non-whites was an on-going battle if one desired owning a home in white neighborhoods.

Q1.  Imagine you were Dr. Sweet and had chosen to move your family into the Garland home.  Would you have armed yourself and defended your home as he did even if it meant killing/wounding others? Why or why not?

Q2.  Knowing the risks of stepping across “racial boundaries,” would you have taken the risk as Dr. Sweet did to move a family into a white neighborhood in the 1920s?  Why or why not?