Black, Hugo L.

Hugo Lafayette Black (1886–1971) served on the U.S. Supreme Court for thirty-four years and is widely considered to be one of the most influential justices of his time, even though his background and unusual path to the Court might have presaged a far more modest impact.

The son of a store owner of modest means, Black graduated from the University of Alabama and then served as a captain in the army during World War I. After the war, he was a police court judge in rural Alabama before being elected to the U.S. Senate in a landslide in 1926. In the Senate, he was a strong supporter of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal—reportedly a factor in his nomination by Roosevelt to the Supreme Court to replace Justice Willis Van Devanter in 1937.

Because Van Devanter and his conservative colleagues had been wreaking havoc on the New Deal, in 1937 Roosevelt announced a Court Reorganization Plan, but his “Court-packing” scheme was controversial and widely panned. Nevertheless, Senator Black initially supported the plan. When Van Devanter, the first in a string of resignations, left the Court, Roosevelt had a chance to change the composition of the Court, and Black was his first appointee.

Some controversy surrounded Roosevelt’s motivation for selecting Black. Some have argued that Roosevelt nominated Black to fulfill a particular agenda: to undermine the legitimacy of the Supreme Court in the wake of his battles with it. Choosing Black, a nondescript populist senator who would almost certainly be confirmed by his colleagues, might lessen the prestige of the Court. Two things, though, seemed fairly certain: first, Roosevelt wanted a supporter of the New Deal, and, second, he recognized that nominating a senator was likely to ensure a relatively easy confirmation. But instead of an immediate confirmation, the unwritten rule for nominations of senators at that point, the matter was turned over to the Judiciary Committee.

When his nomination finally made it to the floor of the Senate, Black was confirmed by a vote of 63-16. But shortly after the confirmation, the public learned about Black’s past affiliation with the Ku Klux Klan. On the eve of taking his seat on the Supreme Court, Black went public, explaining that membership in the Klan was a practical necessity to enter politics in the South (the KKK supported Black in his Senate campaigns). He went on to say that he had long since renounced the Klan’s beliefs and his membership. Black weathered the storm and eventually became a strong supporter of civil rights. In fact, it became the joke that “as a young man Hugo Black wore white robes and scared black people and as an older man, he wore black robes and scared white people.”

Black joined with his new colleagues on the Court—among them Felix Frankfurter and William O. Douglas—to uphold the regulatory schemes of the New Deal and strengthen the hand of the central government. Ultimately, the Court developed consistent doctrine in these areas, and then it began to turn its attention to civil rights and individual liberties. It was in these areas that Black made his most significant mark.

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