And a Taut Account of a 1920s Race Trial Gets the Nonfiction Prize

By Richard Lacayo

To put it mildly, the book world was surprised when Ron Chernow's Alexander Hamilton was not even nominated for the NBA. A fat biography of a Founding Father--wasn't that the very thing the judges were supposed to love? Instead, Kevin Boyle, an associate professor of history at Ohio State University, turned out to be this year's winner. Although no one in his book wears a powdered wig, Boyle has an irresistible story to tell in Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age (Holt; 415 pages). And tell it he does, sometimes with a novelistic richness, always with a sure feel for tangled motivations and hidden agendas.

Boyle's focus is on a trial that laid bare the racial tensions of Detroit in the 1920s. On Sept. 8, 1925, Ossian Sweet, a young black physician, moved with his wife and baby daughter into a bungalow in a largely white neighborhood. Just one night later, a white mob began showering the place with rocks while police stood by. Then a barrage of gunfire blazed back from the house. Anticipating trouble, Sweet had secretly stored away guns and recruited friends to help him defend his home.

When the shooting ended, one white man was dead, another wounded, and Sweet, his wife and their nine friends were facing murder charges. Their trial was a window on forces that were exploding across the U.S., including the migration of Southern blacks to Northern cities and the rise of the N.A.A.C.P., which saw Sweet's case as an ideal rallying point and brought in Clarence Darrow for the defense. Though the story ends with freedom for the accused, it was a dreadful episode and one nearly forgotten. Boyle brings it back to life brilliantly. --By Richard Lacayo