Detroit

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/7530146

Dr. Ossian Sweet (October 30, 1895 – March 20, 1960) was an African-American physician in Detroit, Michigan. He is known for being charged with murder in 1925 after he and his friends used armed self-defense against a hostile white mob protesting after Sweet moved into their neighborhood.

After the trials, Ossian Sweet rented the home on Garland [Street] to a white couple until 1930, when he moved back into the house. However, both his wife and two-year-old daughter Iva had died of tuberculosis in 1926. Sweet remarried twice, and divorced each time. In 1946, he sold the house, moving into the flat above a pharmacy he owned. In 1960, in failing health, Sweet took his own life.

The Ossian H. Sweet House was designated as a Michigan State Historic Site in 1975 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.