Hugo Black: From Klan Member to Justice Behind Korematsu and Gideon

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Hugo Lafayette Black was born in 1886 in rural Clay County, Alabama, into a Baptist family and built a Birmingham law practice around labor and personal injury cases, including the defense of a Black man forced into commercial slavery after a prison sentence. That case led to a police court judgeship and a job as a prosecutor. Pursuing a U.S. Senate seat in the 1920s, he joined the Ku Klux Klan and gave more than a hundred speeches at Klan gatherings with anti-Catholic and nativist themes. He resigned in 1925 for the campaign, rejoined after winning in 1926, and received a grand passport marking life membership. In the Senate from 1927 to 1937 he backed the New Deal, subpoenaed utility lobbyists' telegrams, sponsored the Black-Connery bill, and filibustered anti-lynching legislation.

Franklin Roosevelt named him to the Supreme Court in 1937, and weeks later a Pulitzer winning expose revealed his Klan ties; he answered in a radio address to about 50 million listeners. On the Court he became a strict textualist who dissented in Griswold v. Connecticut, voted to allow publication of the Pentagon Papers, wrote the rulings against state mandated school prayer, and pressed for total incorporation of the Bill of Rights through the 14th Amendment. He also wrote the majority opinion in Korematsu upholding Japanese American internment, joined Brown v. Board of Education, and dissented in Tinker. He retired in September 1971 and died days later at 85.

• Near the end of his life he reportedly said he would have joined any group that got him votes.
• For Black, Congress shall make no law meant exactly that, with no balancing tests.
• He wrote Gideon v. Wainwright, requiring states to provide lawyers for poor criminal defendants.
• He wrote the opinion sending Klan members to federal trial for the Mississippi Burning civil rights murders.
• He feuded with Justice Robert H. Jackson over recusal and asked to be buried in a simple pine coffin.