Hugo Black

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Lore & Background

Black was born in Harlan, Clay County, Alabama, on February 27, 1886, the youngest of eight children born to William Lafayette Black and Martha (Toland) Black. The family moved to Ashland in 1890. He attended Ashland College, then enrolled at the University of Alabama School of Law, graduating in 1906 with an LL.B. degree. After being admitted to the bar, he began practicing in Ashland, then moved to Birmingham in 1907, where he built a practice specializing in labor law and personal injury cases. As a consequence of his defense of an African American forced into a form of commercial slavery after incarceration, Black was befriended by Judge A. O. Lane. When Lane was elected to the Birmingham City Commission in 1911, he asked Black to serve as a police court judge – his only judicial experience prior to the Supreme Court. Black resigned in 1912 to return to practicing law full time. In 1914, he began a four-year term as the Jefferson County Prosecuting Attorney. During World War I, Black resigned to join the United States Army, serving in the 81st Field Artillery and attaining the rank of captain as the regimental adjutant. The war ended before his new unit departed the United States, and he returned to law practice. He joined the Birmingham Civitan Club, eventually serving as president. On February 23, 1921, Black married Josephine Foster, with whom he had three children: Hugo L. Black, II (1922–2013), an attorney; Sterling Foster (1924–1996); and Martha Josephine (1933–2019). Josephine died in 1951; in 1957, Black married Elizabeth Seay DeMeritte. In the early 1920s, Black became a member of the Robert E. Lee Klan No. 1 in Birmingham. He resigned in 1925 to run for the U.S. Senate, but quietly rejoined the next year. An article from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that he temporarily resigned from the Klan in 1925 to bolster his senatorial campaign, before quietly rejoining in 1926. Scholars and biographers have examined Black's role in the Klan; Howard Ball finds that Black 'sympathized with the group's economic, nativist, and anti-Catholic beliefs.' Newman says Black 'disliked the Catholic Church as an institution' and gave over 100 anti-Catholic speeches to KKK meetings across Alabama in his 1926 election campaign. Black was elected U.S. Senator in 1926 as a Democrat, having built his political career on fighting Catholicism. In 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Black to the Supreme Court without knowing how active he had been in the Klan in the 1920s. He was confirmed by his fellow senators before the full KKK connection was known. After his confirmation, it was reported he had been given a 'grand passport' in 1926, granting him life membership in the Klan. In response, Black said he had never used the passport and had not kept it. He stated: 'Before becoming a Senator I dropped the Klan. I have had nothing to do with it since that time. I abandoned it. I completely discontinued any association with the organization.'

Reader's Guide

Hugo Black served on the Supreme Court for 34 years, making him the sixth longest-serving justice in Supreme Court history. He is significant for his textualist approach, using historical evidence to support his interpretations, and for his absolutist view of the First Amendment, often declaring 'No law means no law.' He expanded individual rights in cases such as Gideon v. Wainwright (right to counsel), Engel v. Vitale (school prayer), and Wesberry v. Sanders (one person, one vote). However, his legacy is complex: during World War II, he wrote the majority opinion in Korematsu v. United States (1944), which upheld the internment of Japanese Americans ordered by President Franklin Roosevelt. During the mid-1960s, Black became slightly more conservative. He opposed the doctrine of substantive due process and believed there was no basis in the words of the Constitution for a right to privacy, voting against finding one in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965). He also took conservative positions in cases such as Shapiro v. Thompson, Goldberg v. Kelly, Tinker v. Des Moines, and Cohen v. California, where he distinguished between 'pure speech' and 'expressive conduct.' His early Klan membership remains a subject of scholarly examination, with biographers noting his anti-Catholic speeches and sympathies. Black's career illustrates the tension between civil libertarianism and deference to government power, as well as the personal contradictions in a justice who shaped modern constitutional law.

Did You Know?

• Black was the first of nine Roosevelt appointees to the Supreme Court, and outlasted all except William O. Douglas.
• He served as a police court judge in Birmingham from 1911 to 1912 – his only judicial experience prior to the Supreme Court.
• During World War I, Black served in the 81st Field Artillery and attained the rank of captain as the regimental adjutant.
• In 1935, Black chaired the Senate committee investigating lobbying activities and went on NBC's National Radio Forum to speak about a $5 million electric industry lobbying campaign.
• Black wrote the majority opinion in Korematsu v. United States (1944), which upheld the internment of Japanese Americans ordered by President Franklin Roosevelt.