Date/Time
Date(s) - March 15, 2023
7:00 pm
Location
Student Union Ballroom, McNichols Campus
Detroit Mercy will hold a panel discussion and documentary viewing of Ossian Sweet as part of the University’s celebration of Black History Month. The event was re-scheduled to Wednesday, March 15 at 7 p.m. due to the University closing because of weather during late February. It will be held in the Student Union Ballroom on the McNichols Campus.
In 1925, Black physician Ossian Sweet was charged with murder after using armed self-defense against a white mob protesting his move into an all-white neighborhood of Detroit. The following year, Sweet and the other people inside his home were acquitted of murder in a landmark case that led to advances in equal criminal justice for African Americans.
Daniel Baxter ’01, founder of the Ossian Sweet Foundation and director of elections for the city of Detroit, will preview his new documentary on Sweet. Baxter will join Kevin Boyle ’82, author of Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights and Murder in the Jazz Age, which explores Sweet’s story, and Arthur Beer, professor emeritus and director and producer of Malice Aforethought: The Sweet Trials, for a panel discussion.
An alumni reception will precede the event. Register for the reception online.
This event is sponsored by the Office of Alumni Relations, African American Studies program and Black Abolitionist Archive.
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