Arc Of Justice – Cheat Sheet
Ossian Sweet
Sweet was born in Florida in 1895, to a
father who was a former slave.
When he was six years old, Ossian
witnessed a lynching in Florida that had an
influence on his views of race.
Sweet left Florida at age 13 to attend
Wilberforce prep-school and college in
Ohio.
After finishing his degree at Wilberforce,
Sweet attended Medical School at Howard,
in Washington D.C. , where he witnessed
the D.C. riots of 1919.
Arc Of Justice – Cheat Sheet
Ossian Sweet (continued)
Sweet moved to Detroit. He was
unable to find work in a hospital due to
his race, and instead opened an office
in Black Bottom.
Sweet found his wife in Detroit, and
after they were married the couple
traveled to Europe in 1923, where he
studied under Europeans like Marie
Curie.
When the Sweets returned to Detroit in
1924, they had their first child and
needed a bigger place to live to raise
their family.
Arc Of Justice – Cheat Sheet
Gladys Sweet
Gladys Mitchell was born in Pittsburg but
was raised in Detroit, to a middle-class
black family.
Gladys’ family had been in Detroit long
enough that they lived near whites and
Gladys grew up on the east-side where she
was very used to living around white
people.
Arc Of Justice – Cheat Sheet
Waterworks Park
Waterworks Park is a neighborhood on the east-side of Detroit,
named after a public park, built on the grounds of a water
pumping station.
Arc Of Justice – Cheat Sheet
Wilberforce University
Wilberforce is a Historically Black College, located in Xenia, Ohio,
which was set up by the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
Wilberforce was a top school that
attracted top professors like W.E.B.
Du Bois.
Arc Of Justice – Cheat Sheet
Mitchell’s
Family friends of the Sweets, who
allowed the Sweets to stay with
them when they returned from
Europe.
Dunbar (Hospital)
Detroit’s First Black Hospital.
Ossian was not able to get a job
there, but aspired to eventually
become one of their doctors,
Arc Of Justice – Cheat Sheet
Anglo-Saxon
This term describes people whose ancestry dates back to the
Europeans who conquered what we now know as the British
Isles. This includes the English, but not the Irish.
Arc Of Justice – Cheat Sheet
Talented Tenth
This term was used by W.E.B. Du
Bois, in an essay where Du Bois
stated that he believed that one
in ten black men had the ability
to become leaders for their race.
Du Bois believed was the
responsibility of these men to
act as leaders in the fight for
Civil Rights. Ossian viewed the
Doctors at Dunbar as clearly
part of this group and wished to
become a leader as well.