Black, Hugo Lafayette

Born February 27, 1886, in Clay County, AL
Died September 25, 1971, in Bethesda, MD

Federal Judicial Service:
Associate Justice, Supreme Court of the United States
Nominated by Franklin D. Roosevelt on August 12, 1937, to a seat vacated by Willis Van Devanter. Confirmed by the Senate on August 17, 1937, and received commission on August 18, 1937. Assumed senior status on September 17, 1971. Service terminated on September 25, 1971, due to death.

Supreme Court Oath:
August 19, 1937

Allotment as Circuit Justice:

Fifth Circuit, November 8, 1937-September 17, 1971
Ninth Circuit, June 24, 1957-October 13, 1958
District of Columbia Circuit, June 24, 1957-October 13, 1958

Education:
University of Alabama School of Law, LL.B., 1906

Professional Career:

Private practice, Ashland, Alabama 1906-1907
Private practice, Birmingham, Alabama, 1907-1917, 1919-1927
Judge, Birmingham [Alabama] Police Court, 1910-1911
Prosecutor, Birmingham, Alabama, 1914-1917
U.S. Army captain, 1917-1919
U.S. senator from Alabama, 1927-1937
Presiding officer, Judicial Conference of the United States, 1953

Bibliography

Amar, Akhil Reed. “2000 Daniel J. Meador Lecture: Hugo Black and the Hall of Fame.” Alabama Law Review, vol. 53, no. 4 (Summer 2002): 1221-48.

Anastaplo, George. “In re Justice Hugo Lafayette Black (1886-1971): My More or Less ‘Personal’ Experience of Him.” Loyola University Chicago Law Review, vol. 44, no. 4 (Summer 2013): 1271-80.

Atkins, Burton M. and Terry Sloope. “The ‘New’ Hugo Black & the Warren Court.” Polity, vol. 18, no. 4 (Summer 1986): 612-37.

Ball, Howard. “Fighting Justices: Hugo L. Black and William O. Douglas and Supreme Court Conflict.” American Journal of Legal History, vol. 38, no. 1 (Jan. 1994): 1-37.

________. Hugo Black: Cold Steel Warrior. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.

________. The Vision and the Dream of Justice Hugo L. Black: An Examination of a Judicial Philosophy. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1976.

________ and Phillip J. Cooper. Of Power and Right: Hugo Black, William Douglas, and America’s Constitutional Revolution. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.

Baier, Paul R. “Hugo Black and Judicial Lawmaking: Forty Years in Retrospect.” Nexus – Chapman’s Journal of Law & Policy, vol. 14, no. 1 (2009): 3-19.

Berman, Daniel M. “Hugo L. Black: The Early Years.” Catholic University Law Review, vol. 8, no. 2 (1959): 103-16.

Cole, Kenneth C. “Mr. Justice Black and ‘Senatorial Courtesy.’” American political Science Review, vol. 31, no. 6 (Dec. 1937): 1113-15.

Cooper, Jerome A. “Mr. Justice Hugo Black: Free Man.” Alabama Law Review, vol. 17, no. 2 (Spring 1975): 195-200.

Cooper, Richard. Hugo Black: Justice for All. Raleigh, NC: Creative Production, 1987.

Cowley, Jaime Lynn. “State of Alabama v. Stephenson: The State’s Futile Fight against Hugo Black and the Ku Klux Klan.” Alabama Law Review, vol. 55, no. 4 (Summer 2004): 1125-48.

Decker, Raymond G. “Hugo L. Black: The Balancer of Absolutes.” California Law Review, vol. 59, no. 6 (Nov. 1971): 1335-55.

Domnarski, William. The Great Justices, 1941-54: Black, Douglas, Frankfurter, and Jackson in Chambers. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006.

Donnici, Peter J. “Protector of the Minorities: Mr. Justice Hugo L. Black.” University of Missouri at Kansas City Law Review, vol. 32, no. 2 (Summer 1964): 266-91.

Dunne, Gerald T. Hugo Black and the Judicial Revolution. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1977.

________. “Justice Hugo Black and the Brown Decision: A Speculative Inquiry.” Missouri Law Review, vol. 39, no. 1 (Winter 1974): 1-26.

________. “Justices Hugo Black and Robert Jackson: The Great Feud.” Saint Louis University Law Journal, vol. 19, no. 4 (Summer 1975): 465-88.

Euken, Jaime C. “Evil, Greed, Treachery, Deception and Fraud: The World of Lobbying According to Senator Hugo Black.” Federal History, vol. 6 (2014): 61-83.

Feldman, Noah. Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of FDR’s Great Supreme Court Justices. New York: Twelve, 2010.

Frank, John P., et. al. Mr. Justice Black: The Man and his Opinions. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1977.

Freyer, Tony Allan. Hugo L. Black and the Dilemma of American Liberalism. Glenview, Ill.: Scott, Foreman, 1990.

________. Justice Hugo Black and Modern America. University of Alabama Press, 2002.

Gordon, Murray. “Hugo Black – First Amendment Fundamentalist.” Lawyers Guild Review, vol. 20, no. 1 (Spring 1960): 1-5.

Gregory, William A. and Rennard Strickland. “Hugo Black’s Congressional Investigation of Lobbying and the Public Utilities Holding Company Act: A Historical View of the Power Trust, New Deal Politics, and Regulatory Propaganda.” Oklahoma Law Review, vol. 29, no. 3 (Summer 1976): 543-76.

Haigh, Roger W. “Defining Due Process of Law: The Case of Mr. Justice Hugo L. Black.” South Dakota Law Review, vol. 17, no. 1 (Winter 1972): 1-40.

Hamilton, Virginia Van der Veer. Hugo Black: The Alabama Years. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1972.

Harlan, John M. “Mr. Justice Black – Remarks of a Colleague.” Harvard Law Review, vol. 81, no. 1 (Nov. 1967): 1-3.

Hockett, Jeffrey D. “Justices Frankfurter and Black: Social Theory and Constitutional Interpretation.” Political Science Quarterly, vol. 107, no. 3 (Autumn 1992): 479-99.

________. New Deal Justice: The Jurisprudence of Hugo L. Black, Felix Frankfurter, and Robert Jackson. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 1996.

Hollinger, Barnard F. “Justice Hugo Black and the First Amendment: An Alabama Connection.” Alabama Lawyer, vol. 49, no. 4 (Jul. 1998): 220-5.

Hulnick, Blake B. “Consumer Crusade: Justice Hugo Black as Senate Investigator.” Journal of Southern Legal History, vol. 24 (2016): 69-108.

Hutchinson, Dennis J. “The Black-Jackson Feud.” Supreme Court Review, vol. 1988 (1988): 203-43.

Kastenberg, Joshua E. “Hugo Black’s Vision of the Lawyer, the First Amendment, and the Duty of the Judiciary: The Bar Applicant Cases in a National Security State.” William and Mary Bill of Rights Journal, vol. 20, no. 3 (Mar. 2012): 691-790.

Klein, Michael R. “Hugo L. Black: A Judicial View of American Constitutional Democracy.” University of Miami Law Review, vol. 22, no. 3 (Spring 1968): 753-99.

Leuchtenburg, William E. “A Klansman Joins the Court: The Appointment of Hugo L. Black.” University of Chicago Law Review, vol. 41, no. 1 (Fall 1973): 1-31.

McGrath, Mary Ann Theresa. “Justice Hugo Black – A Question of Conscience and Consistency: Welsh v. United States.” Loyola Law Review, vol. 17, no. 1 (1970): 105-46.

Meese, Edwin III. “A Tribute to Justice Hugo Black.” Saint Louis University Public Law Review, vol. 6, no. 2 (1987): 187-96.

Mendelson, Wallace. “Hugo Black and Judicial Discretion.” Political Science Quarterly, vol. 85, no. 1 (Mar. 1970): 17-39.

________. Justices Black and Frankfurter: Conflict in the Court. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961.

Milligan, Luke M. “Hugo’s Trumpet: 50^th Anniversary of Gideon v. Wainwright.” Bench & Bar, vol. 77, no. 2 (Mar. 2013): 7-10.

Newman, Roger K. “Black and Brown.” University of San Francisco Law Review, vol. 29, no. 3 (Spring 1995): 635-44.

________. Hugo Black: A Biography. New York: Fordham University Press, 1997.

Perry, Barbara A. “Justice Hugo Black and the ‘Wall of Separation between Church and State.’” Journal of Church and State, vol. 31, no. 1 (Winter 1989): 55-72.

Pruden, Durward. Opposition of the Press to the Ascension of Hugo Black to the Supreme Court of the United States. Ph.D. Diss., New York University, 1945.

Schneiderman, Michael. “The positivism of Hugo Black v. the Natural Law of Ivan Rand: A Study in Contrasting Judicial Philosophies.” Saskatchewan Law Review, vol. 33, no. 4 (Winter 1968): 267-92.

Simon, James F. The Antagonists: Hugo Black, Felix Frankfurter and Civil Liberties in Modern America. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990.

Snowiss, Sylvia. “The Legacy of Justice Black.” Supreme Court Review, vol. 1973 (1973): 187-252.

Strickland, Stephen P. “Mr. Justice Black: A Reappraisal.” Federal Bar Journal, vol. 25, no. 4 (1965): 365-82.

Suitts, Steve. Hugo Black of Alabama: How his Roots and Early Career Shaped the Great Champion of the Constitution. Montgomery, AL: New South Books, 2017.

Thomas, Cherry Lynn and Jean McCulley Holcomb. “Hugo Lafayette Black: A Bibliography of the Court Years, 1937-1971.” Alabama Law Review, vol. 38 (Winter 1987): 381-500.

Ulmer, S. Sidney. “The Longitudinal Behavior of Hugo Lafayette Black: Parabolic Support for Civil Liberties, 1937-1971.” Florida State Law Review, vol. 1, no. 1 (Winter 1973): 131-53.

Wallensak, O.W. “Hugo Lafayette Black and John Marshall Harlan: Two Faces of Constitutional Law – with some Notes for Teaching Thayer’s Subject.” Southern University Law Review, vol. 9, no. 1 (1982-1983): 1-36.

Williams, Charlotte. Hugo L. Black: A Study in the Judicial Process. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1950.

Winters, Glenn R. “The Hugo Black Appointment.” Judicature, vol. 60, no. 7 (Feb. 1977): 349- 52.

Yarbrough, Tinsley E. Mr. Justice Black and his Critics. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1989.

________. “Mr. Justice Black and Legal Positivism.” Virginia Law Review, vol. 57, no. 3 (Apr. 1971): 375-407.

Symposium: “Justice Hugo L. Black: A Symposium.” Southwestern University Law Review, vol. 9 (1977): 845-1126.

Tributes: “Justice Hugo L. Black Centennial.” Alabama Law Review, vol. 36, no. 3 (Spring 1985): 789-926.

Tributes: “Commemorating the Centennial of Hugo L. Black.” Alabama Law Review, vol. 38 (Winter 1987): 215-499.

Tributes: American University Law Review, vol. 10, no. 1 (Jan. 1961): 1-62.

Tributes: “Mr. Justice Black: Thirty Years in Retrospect.” UCLA Law Review, vol. 14, no. 2 (Jan. 1967): 397-552.

Manuscript Collections

Harvard Law School
Cambridge, Mass.
Hugo Black letters to various correspondents, 1937-1966.
4 items; includes correspondence regarding Black's dissent to the Rules of Civil Procedure for U.S. District Courts.

Library of Congress
Washington, D.C.
Hugo Black papers, 1883-1976.
216 linear ft. (130,000 items); finding aid; restricted; collection contains family papers, correspondence, senatorial and Supreme Court files, speeches, writings, and miscellany.

Federal Judicial Center

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Black, Hugo Lafayette