Jury for the Aaron Sapiro vs. Henry Ford Libel Suit, March 20, 1927

In 1925, Aaron Sapiro--a farm cooperative organizer--filed a libel lawsuit against Henry Ford and his associates for articles published in the The Dearborn Independent. The articles attacked Sapiro, claiming his work with the agricultural community was part of a Jewish conspiracy. This was not the first time the Ford-owned newspaper had attacked Jews: from 1920-1922 the paper ran a series of front-page anti-Semitic articles. The first trial was contentious and ended in a mistrial after unsubstantiated stories circulated that one of the jury members had been offered a bribe to convict Ford. As another trial loomed, Ford--uneasy about the possibility of testifying and fearing the loss of his reputation--decided to settle. In 1927, Ford released a written apology, which claimed he was ill-informed about the paper's action, and formally recanted the charges against Jews made by his paper.