There are many books and sources that deal with racial violence and discrimination in the Post-Civil War era. There are also many books and writings that reflect over individual encounters and experiences in these times as well. However, there are fewer books that add both of these elements together. Kevin Boyle's Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights and Murder in the Jazz Age does just that. Boyle, a professor of history at Ohio State University, is the author who has penned this National Book Award winning book. Boyle, through his research and preparation, has brought Arc of Justice to the world of academia with one goal: to combine both history and personal experiences together in an effort to explain and illustrate racial and civil rights conflicts. He provides, in his work, a biographical portion, which looks at the life of Dr. Ossian Sweet, an African American who lived in the Jazz Age. He also provides portions of script that involve the history of the United States in regards to racial discrimination and civil rights. Kevin Boyle's novel is made up of ten separate chapters. The first chapter starts off by showing the conflict of the book. It shows the event from which the rest of the book revolves around. This is the event in which Ossian Sweet and his family move to a new house in Garland Avenue, Detroit, which is a formerly all-white neighborhood. Upon the second night of staying at this new house a crowd, made up of whites, plants itself outside. Soon several people begin throwing rocks and shots are fired from the top level of the house. These shots leave one man injured and one man dead. From here the book then takes a turn and goes back in time to look over the family of Ossian Sweet in order to better understand the man in which the book is written about. Boyle explains that he comes from a family in which slavery was very much intact. He also explains that Sweet's parents wanted him out of the Jim Crow south