One Man's Castle: Clarence Darrow in Defense of the American Dream by Phyllis Vine

Abstract

146 Michigan Historical Review the usually middle-class civic authorities and reformers had to contend with each other over the allocation of funds and the maintenance of the racial status quo. Vaillant asserts that immigrant communities, civic authorities, and musical progressives usually shared antiblack sentiments. Yet from the 1890s onward, all of these groups had to deal with the incursion of Dixieland and other syncopated, popular forms of music into the reformers' world. Music's commercialization further challenged reformers' efforts and continued to have an impact on and modify shifting racial and musical boundaries. The chapter, "They Whirl Off the Edges of a Decent Life: Unmasking Difference at the Dance Hall, 1904-1933," is a brilliant analysis of social dancing in Chicago, commercial taxi-dance parlors, and the ways that whiteness was challenged and interrogated in these venues. This chapter illuminates the struggles of new jazz musicians, second generation ethnic community members who received their training through progressive music-reform initiatives, but then sometimes opposed the middle-class reformers' musical norms. Any history of reform in Chicago must include Hull House's contribution to civic life and change. Vaillant does not disappoint, as this institution's work is interwoven throughout the volume. His tour de force concludes with a brief, imaginative comparison of Jane Addams with Tupac Shakur as an exemplar of music's continuing reform impulse, even in our postmodern world. This study may serve as a template for uncovering musical progressive activism in midwestern centers such as Detroit, Cincinnati, Columbus, and Cleveland. Harry A. Reed, Professor Emeritus Michigan State University Phyllis Vine. One Man's Castle: Clarence Darrow inDefense of theAmerican Dream. New York: Amistad, 2005. Pp. 349. Bibliography. Illustrations. Index. Notes. Paper, $13.95. Most people associate racial activism with the civil rights movement that began in the 1950s. But long before that movement started, African Americans committed to the defense of civil rights asserted their rights to equality and citizenship. One of these people was Dr. Ossian Sweet, a member of what W. E. B. DuBois termed the "Talented Tenth," who defied Detroit's racial segregation in 1925 to move into an all-white Book Reviews 147 neighborhood. His family was met by awhite mob throwing bricks at the Sweets's home. As police officers looked on, the situation became increasingly violent. The Sweets and their friends defended themselves against the attack, which was led by Ku Klux Klan sympathizers. A member of the white mob was killed, and Dr. Sweet and ten of his friends were arrested on murder charges. In her book One Man's Castle: Clarence Darrow in Defense of theAmerican Dream, Phyllis Vine uses the Sweet case and trial as a window into the state of American race relations in the early decades of the twentieth century and a way of understanding contemporary racial problems. According to Vine, the story of Dr. Sweet "permits us to understand the personal as political, the historical in the contemporary. It is a reminder that the past challenges us in the present" (p. 5). One Man's Castle chronicles historical events and Dr. Sweet's life in order to outline the state of race relations during the late 1800s and early 1900s. But the author manages to create more than just a biography of Dr. Sweet. She conveys the racial tension that was rampant in Detroit, analyzes the legal details of the trial and the character of its participants, portrays the genius of Clarence Darrow, and provides a glimpse into the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) as it developed into an organization dedicated to achieving legal justice for African Americans. Kevin Boyle's Arc ofJustice uses a similar approach in its treatment of the Sweet case. While both Boyle and Vine focus on Ossian Sweet and his trial, they are more keenly interested in the larger historical backdrop of racism, politics, and civil rights. Vine reminds readers that racial segregation and oppression thrived outside the southern United States, especially during the 1920s, when race riots exploded across the country. Although well-written, the narrative stalls at times as Vine attempts to sort through a myriad of historical details. Despite this minor complaint...