The Tragedy of Ossian Sweet

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Although the trial of People v. Sweet was a clear legal victory for Ossian, his wife, his friends and all others involved in the defense, the story as a whole was a heart wrenching and grim calamity for the Sweets. Not to mention the NAACP’s failed initiative to champion the case in hopes that it would foreshadow a bigger, nation-wide residential segregation victory in the Supreme Court and maybe even a civil rights movement. After Henry’s acquittal none of the men spent day in jail for the night of September 9th 1925 but both trials didn’t have the effect the NAACP planned and ended playing an insignificant role in the big picture of residential segregation and minority rights as a whole. After the trial of Henry Sweet, Robert Toms announced the end of the trials, People v. Sweet would never see another day in court. However much relief it was to hear that, it was small victory compared to the permanent damage the trials inflicted on the lives of the defendants, especially Ossian Sweet. After their Europe trip, by the time they were looking for a house to buy, Ossian and Gladys were both cultured and sophisticated1. Gladys through her upbringing and Ossian through his extensive education and his choice of profession as a doctor were in a higher societal bracket than most if not all of the residents in their prospective neighborhood of their newly purchased house. To Gladys this level of sophistication was not something sought after, it just happened to be an inherent quality of hers as a result of her family background. However for Ossian it was more than a conscious thought to him it was a goal; to look more mature, better educated and overall well-off. It even dictated the way he dressed, “So he favored tailored suits, well... ... middle of paper ... ... Then the one object left of his success from the trial, his retention of the bungalow, was taken from him when he had to sell it in order to avoid foreclosure.1 With no house Ossian was forced to live in his new office located in the ghetto, the very place he refused to live more than thirty years ago, risking everything. After all this hardship on March 20th 1960 at the young age of sixty-four Ossian Sweet committed suicide.2 The story of Ossian Sweet and the trials he, his family, and friends had to go through was a tribulation unlike any kind. The small victory of acquittal had virtually no effect on the civil rights movement and had only given back the lives of the defendants permanently damaged had been afflicted. It was a tragic example of how in an oppressive society of white supremacy even when the minority wins, he loses, and in this case loses everything.

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