Editing Hugo Black (section)

==Ku Klux Klan and anti-Catholicism==
Shortly after Black's appointment to the Supreme Court, [[Ray Sprigle]] of the ''[[Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]]'' wrote a series of articles, for which he won a [[Pulitzer Prize]], revealing Black's involvement in the Klan<ref name="Ball (2006)" />{{rp|96}}<ref name="pgdigs.tumblr.com">{{Cite web|url=http://pgdigs.tumblr.com/image/30869087306|title=The Digs|website=Pittsburgh Post-Gazette  |access-date=November 8, 2016|archive-date=March 17, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180317171914/http://pgdigs.tumblr.com/image/30869087306|url-status=live}}</ref> and describing his resignation from the Klan as "the first move of his campaign for the Democratic nomination for United States Senator from Alabama". Sprigle wrote that "Black and the leaders of the Klan decided it was good political strategy for Black to make the senatorial race unimpeded by Klan membership but backed by the power of the Klan. That resignation [was] filed for the duration of the campaign but never revealed to the rank and file of the order and held secretly in the records of the Alabama Realm".<ref name="pgdigs.tumblr.com"/>

Roosevelt denied knowledge of Black's KKK membership.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/_resources/images/pc/pc0054.pdf|title=FDR Press Conference #398|date=September 14, 1937|access-date=November 8, 2016|via=FDR Presidential Library & Museum|archive-date=February 14, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170214010126/http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/_resources/images/pc/pc0054.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Daniels2015">{{cite book|author=Roger Daniels|title=Franklin D. Roosevelt: Road to the New Deal, 1882–1939|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KJWJCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT381|date=2015|publisher=University of Illinois Press|isbn=978-0-252-09762-1|page=381|access-date=August 29, 2018|archive-date=February 18, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200218141116/https://books.google.com/books?id=KJWJCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT381|url-status=live}}</ref>

In a radio statement on October 1, 1937,<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.criticalpast.com/video/65675051613_Hugo-Black_addresses-nation_membership-of-Ku-Klux-Klan_people-gather|title=Justice Hugo Black admits his membership in Ku Klux Klan in an address to the nation through radio in Washington D.C.|website=criticalpast.com|access-date=November 8, 2016|format=video|archive-date=November 9, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161109152132/http://www.criticalpast.com/video/65675051613_Hugo-Black_addresses-nation_membership-of-Ku-Klux-Klan_people-gather|url-status=live}}</ref> Black said in part, "I number among my friends many members of the colored race. Certainly, they are entitled to the full measure of protection accorded by our Constitution and our laws{{nbsp}}..."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.pbs.org/wnet/supremecourt/about/pop_transcript3.html|title=The Supreme Court . Transcript {{!}} PBS|publisher=PBS|access-date=November 8, 2016|archive-date=September 1, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170901024303/http://www.pbs.org/wnet/supremecourt/about/pop_transcript3.html|url-status=live}}</ref> Black also said, "I did join the Klan. I later resigned. I never rejoined.{{nbsp}}... 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. I have never resumed it and never expect to do so."<ref name="Ball (2006)" />{{rp|98}} The ''Pittsburgh Post-Gazette'' reported that about fifty million listeners heard Black's address on the radio, reportedly a larger radio audience than any previous speech except the abdication address of [[King Edward VIII]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Berman |first=Daniel M. |date=1959 |title=Hugo L. Black: The Early Years |url=https://scholarship.law.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3011&context=lawreview |journal=Catholic University Law Review |volume=8 |issue=2}}</ref>

Near the end of his life, Black said that joining the Klan was a mistake: "I would have joined any group if it helped get me votes."<ref name="Ball (2006)" />{{rp|16, 50}}

Biographers in the 1990s examined Black's views of religious denominations. Ball found regarding the Klan that Black "sympathized with the group's economic, nativist, and anti-Catholic beliefs".<ref name="Ball (2006)" />{{rp|16}} Newman said Black "disliked the Catholic Church as an institution" and gave numerous anti-Catholic speeches in his 1926 election campaign to Ku Klux Klan meetings across Alabama.<ref>Roger K. Newman, ''Hugo Black: A Biography'' (1997) pp. 87, 104</ref> However, in 1937 ''[[The Harvard Crimson]]'' reported on Black's appointment of a Jewish law clerk, noting that he "earlier had appointed Miss Annie Butt, a Catholic, as a secretary, and the Supreme Court had designated Leon Smallwood, a Negro and a Catholic as his messenger."<ref>See [http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1937/10/5/harvard-jew-appointed-by-hugo-black/ "Harvard Jew Appointed by Hugo Black To Be Law Clerk"], {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130914053118/http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1937/10/5/harvard-jew-appointed-by-hugo-black/ |date=September 14, 2013 }} ''The Harvard Crimson'' (October 5, 1937). Retrieved March 22, 2014.</ref> In the 1940s,<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=e4YUCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA225 Thomas Jefferson and the Wall of Separation Between Church and State]</ref> Black became intrigued by the anti-Catholic writings of [[Paul Blanshard]].<ref>[https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-law-and-religion/article/political-theology-of-justice-hugo-black/88395F8CC1BA7DBD764EB0EBB5056094 The Political Theology of Justice Hugo Black]</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=DAADFxHzXZsC&pg=PT374 No Establishment of Religion – America's Original Contribution to Religious Liberty]</ref>  Historian J. Mills Thornton emphasizes his close ties to the KKK. The top leader of the Alabama Klan ran his campaign for the Senate, when Black visited most of the KKK locals in Alabama.<ref>J. Mills Thornton, III. (1985) "Hugo Black and the Golden Age" ''Alabama Law Review,'' 36(3), 899-914.</ref>

===Thurgood Marshall and ''Brown v. Board of Education''===
Black was one of the nine justices of the [[Supreme Court of the United States|Supreme Court]] who in 1954 ruled unanimously in ''[[Brown v. Board of Education]]'' that [[Racial segregation in the United States|segregation]] in [[State school|public schools]] is [[unconstitutional]]. The plaintiffs were represented by [[Thurgood Marshall]]. A decade later, on October 2, 1967, Marshall became the first African American to be appointed to the Supreme Court, and served with Black on the court until Black's retirement on September 17, 1971.

===''United States v. Price''===
In ''[[United States v. Price]]'' (1965), eighteen [[Ku Klux Klan]] members were charged with murder and conspiracy for the [[Murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner|deaths]] of [[James Chaney]], [[Andrew Goodman (activist)|Andrew Goodman]] and [[Michael Schwerner]], but the charges were dismissed by the trial court. A unanimous Supreme Court, which included Black, reversed the dismissal and ordered the case to proceed to trial. Seven of these men, including fellow Klansmen [[Samuel Bowers]], [[Cecil Price]] and [[Alton Wayne Roberts]] were found guilty of the crime; eight of them, including [[Lawrence A. Rainey]], were found not guilty; and three of them, including [[Edgar Ray Killen]], had their cases end in a [[hung jury]].<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-edgar-ray-killen-20180112-story.html|title=Edgar Ray Killen, the KKK leader convicted in the 'Mississippi Burning' killings, dies in prison|date=January 12, 2018|work=[[Los Angeles Times]]}}</ref>