'Hugo Black: A Biography'
by Roger K. Newman
Pantheon/Cornelia & Michael Bessie, $35
Talk about a confirmation problem. While Clarence Thomas had to worry about sexual harassment and Robert Bork had to explain his radical conservatism, Hugo Black, nominated to the Supreme Court by President Franklin Roosevelt, was burdened with the mother of all confirmation worries: membership in the Ku Klux Klan.
But it was 1937, and confirmation hearings weren't what they are today. Ironically, if current standards had been applied, America would have lost one of its greatest justices, and the Warren Court might never have achieved its legacy of individual rights and liberty - due in part to the contributions of Justice Hugo Black.
With a life this colorful and significant, it is astonishing that no serious biography of the one-time Alabama senator has been written before now. Legal scholar Roger K. Newman finally fills that gap, providing a long-overdue profile of this enigmatic justice.
EARLY TRIAL WATCHER
Hugo LaFayette Black was born in rural Alabama in 1886. His father ran a general store near the county courthouse, where young Hugo sat mesmerized through virtually every trial. This early exposure served him well, first as a law student at the University of Alabama, then as a county prosecutor, judge and trial lawyer.
Then, in 1923 - three years before he was elected to the U.S. Senate - Black joined the Ku Klux Klan. The organization was at its peak; the initiation ceremony for him and others was attended by 25,000 people. Black later claimed he only "went to a couple of meetings and spoke about liberty." Newman, however, documents extensive involvement with the Klan and its reciprocal support for his Senate campaign.
Once elected, Black enthusiastically embraced the New Deal, and the Supreme Court nomination was his reward. Despite persistent KKK rumors, the Senate confirmed him, with one senator dryly remarking, "Hugo won't have to buy a new robe; he can have his white one dyed black."
Later, when an enterprising journalist uncovered Black's Klan involvement, the nation erupted, and Black was able to put the issue to rest only after a dramatic nationwide radio broadcast.
STAUNCHLY DEFENDED CIVIL RIGHTS
Ironically, on the High Court and in the Senate, Black rejected Klan principles that had helped him gain power. He became the court's most ardent defender of individual liberty. Indeed, decades later his son introduced him at a bar-association gathering by saying, "Hugo Black used to wear white robes and frighten black people. Now he wears black robes and frightens white people."
Black believed that most constitutional provisions were absolute. The First Amendment, he liked to emphasize, says "Congress shall make no law," not "some laws" abridging freedom of speech. "Being a rather backward country fellow," he explained, "I understand it to mean what the words say."
By his death in 1971, Black had seen many of his ringing dissents from earlier, conservative rulings become law during the more liberal Warren Court of the 1960s. Just weeks before he died, his concurring opinion in the Pentagon Papers case - he rejected the Nixon administration's attempt to halt their publication - capped a career devoted to protecting First Amendment freedoms.
This is a compelling survey of a kaleidoscopic career, but it's only half complete. While Newman comprehensively portrays Black's life work, he almost completely avoids any discussion of his personal life, his troubled wife, or his daughters. His family moves through the book like shadows, ill-defined and unexplained.
Newman's efforts are nonetheless a good first step toward understanding Hugo Black. It's just a shame it isn't more.
