Daniel A. Baxter, Ossian H. Sweet House Renovation

On September 8, 1925, Ossian H. Sweet, an African American physician, moved into a home at 2905 Garland in an all-white neighborhood before Detroit was a majority Black city. A rock-throwing mob gathered the next night intent on running Sweet's family out of the neighborhood. Shots were fired — two of Sweet's brothers, his wife, a cousin and several friends were in the home at the time — and a White man in the mob was killed. The NAACP hired famed attorney Clarence Darrow to represent Sweet and the others in the home charged with M**der. The first trial ended in a mistrial for the defendants as the all-White jury was unable to reach a decision. On retrial, jurors acquitted one of Sweet's brothers, and the prosecutor decided to drop the rest of the charges.

Daniel A. Baxter, Chief Operating Officer of the Detroit Department of Elections, was born and raised in the Ossian Sweet house and has spearheaded renovations to publicly open the home as a living museum. On Tuesday evening, February 25, 2025, he will share his journey growing up in the Sweet home as well as his passion and progress made renovating the historic structure.

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