Hugo Black of Alabama: How His Roots and Early Career Shaped the Great Champion of the Constitution [Hardcover]

Steve Suitts (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 2005

Three decades after his death, the life and career of Supreme Court Justice Hugo L. Black continue to be studied and discussed. This latest and perhaps definitive study of Black’s origins and early influences has been 25 years in the making and offers fresh insights into the justice’s character, thought processes, and instincts. Black came out of hardscrabble Alabama hill country, and he never forgot his origins. He was further shaped in the early 20th-century politics of Birmingham, where he set up a law practice and began his political career, eventually rising to the U.S. Senate, from which he was selected by FDR for the high court. Black’s nomination was opposed partly on the grounds that he had been a member of the Ku Klux Klan. One of the book’s conclusions that is sure to be controversial is that in the context of Birmingham in the early 1920s, Black’s joining of the KKK was a progressive act. This startling assertion is supported by an examination of the conflict that was then raging in Birmingham between the Big Mule industrialists and the blue-collar labor unions. Black, of course, went on to become a staunch judicial advocate of free speech and civil rights, thus making him one of the figures most vilified by the KKK and other white supremacists in the 1950s and 1960s.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A vivid account of a young lawyer’s career on the way to the United States Senate." -- George B. Tindall, Kenan Professor of History Emeritus, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

"Illuminates the political, economic, class, racial and family forces that shaped one of the nations’s most influential and controversial ... justices." -- Norman Dorsen, Stokes Professor of Law, New York University, and President ACLU, 1976–1991

From the Inside Flap

Three decades after his death, the life and career of Supreme Court Justice Hugo L. Black remain both an enigma and controversial. This latest, definitive study of Black’s origins and early influences has been twenty-five years in the making and offers fresh, dramatic insights into the Justice’s character, philosophy, and ethics. Hugo Black came out of hardscrabble Alabama hill country, and he never forgot his origins. He was shaped by the early 20th-century politics of Alabama and Birmingham, where he set up a law practice and began his political career, eventually rising to the U.S. Senate. After President Franklin D. Roosevelt selected him for America's highest court in 1937, Black’s appointment was widely condemned once it was reported nationally that he had been a member of the Ku Klux Klan. One of the book’s conclusions that is sure to be controversial is that, in the context of Alabama and Birmingham in the early 1920s, Black’s joining of the KKK was politically progressive and personally ethical. This startling assertion is supported by an examination of Black’s choices amid the conflicts raging in Birmingham at that time between industrialists and labor unions. Black, of course, went on to become one of America’s staunchest judicial champions of free speech, civil liberties, and civil rights and, as a result, he was one of the figures most vilified in the South by the KKK and other white supremacists in the 1950s and early ’60s.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 640 pages
• Publisher: NewSouth (April 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1588381447
• ISBN-13: 978-1588381446
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,678,220 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Supreme Court Justices, September 7, 2005

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D. Hawthorne (chicago) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Hugo Black of Alabama: How His Roots and Early Career Shaped the Great Champion of the Constitution (Hardcover)

Very timely, with the recent death of Judge Rehnquist, the book gives and in-depth picture of a man who follows his own ideals of truth, justice and the equality of all men, regardless of color or faith.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A superbly researched and written biography of Hugo Black, October 11, 2005

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Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hugo Black of Alabama: How His Roots and Early Career Shaped the Great Champion of the Constitution (Hardcover)

This superbly researched and written biography of Hugo Black recreates for the reader the times in which the Deep South was bound up by traditions of white supremacy and how a Southern white man developed a judicial philosophy and temperament to help end America's legal segregation and restore a simple justice that was the hoped for outcome of the American civil war, but which had been undercut by the development of a "Jim Crow" social order of repression and segregation. Biographer Steve Suitts provides new and pivotal information as he lays out the story of Black's personal and public life, provides new perspectives on the sweeping forces that shaped the destiny of Black's life, and the struggle for racial justice in the first quarter of the 20th century. A work of impressive and accessible scholarship, Hugo Black Of Alabama is a highly commended addition to community and academic library American Biography and Judicial History collections.

0 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hugo Black Biography, March 13, 2006

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Byron A. Wiley "By Wiley" (South Carolina) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Hugo Black of Alabama: How His Roots and Early Career Shaped the Great Champion of the Constitution (Hardcover)

Response time was very short. You couldl tell that the book was used, but nothing beyond what would be considered "normal" wear. Overall conditioin was very good.