clipped from: sweettrials.udmercy.edu   

"If you don't stand for something, you will fall for something."
(African proverb)

What would you do if you had to face down an angry and violent mob?

What would you do if the only people you trusted were the handful of friends next to you?

How far would you go to protect your family, your home, all the things you'd worked hard for all your life?

Would you kill to protect your home and those you loved? Would you die for what you believed was right?

What if you had a gun and a hundred rounds of ammunition? What if the fear was stronger than reason?

These are the questions that Ossian Sweet must have asked himself long before a hot September evening in 1924. As a child, he had witnessed the cruel reality of racial hatred first hand. What would he do if all that he was most important in the world to him was threatened? How would he protect his life and the lives of those he loved? Ossian Sweet, his wife, brothers and friends, chose to take a stand that day, and with this one choice, the Detroit social boundaries were changed forever.