Famously liberal Justice Black was part of KKK

[The Straight Story]

Famously liberal Justice Black was part of KKK

By Steve Stewart
DAILY Weekend Editor
[e-mail]· 340-2444

Hugo Black, a famously liberal U.S. Supreme Court justice, was a different Hugo Black from the Ku Klux Klansman whom Alabamians elected to the Senate in 1926 — or was he?

If today's liberals gave him the scrutiny they're now giving Samuel Alito, they would sink Black's court nomination. His Klan membership and use of the n-word while representing clients in court would be enough.

Did Hugo Black change after President Franklin D. Roosevelt made him a justice in 1937?

- snip -
As the Senate considers President Bush's nomination of Alito, Hugo Black is a reminder that a nominee's core values (if they can be identified) say more than his past behavior about what he will do once he has a lifetime job on that court.

http://www.decaturdaily.com/decaturdaily/books/060101/book1.shtml

I am not even sure where to begin with this...guess we should just go easy on Alito based on this guy's reasoning....

[northzax]

1. is he saying that Alito is a klansman?

I don't see any other reason to bring this up.

[onehandle]

2. He's a Konservative Korporate Klansman. nt

[zalinda]

3. Apples and oranges!

Black grew up with segregation and back then KKK was not seen as a bad thing.

"William J. Simmons, a former Methodist preacher, organized a new Klan in Stone Mountain, Georgia in 1915 as a patriotic, Protestant fraternal society. This new Klan directed its activity against, not just blacks, but any group it considered un-American, including any immigrants, Jews, and Roman Catholics. The Ku Klux Klan grew rapidly from here and had more than 2 million members throughout the country by the mid-1920's. Although the Klan still reverted at times to violence of previous years, burning crosses, torturing and murdering those who they opposed, most of the Klan acted through peaceful means. The KKK instead became a more powerful political force as it elected many public officials throughout the nation. However, eventually the organization became weakened by disagreements among the leadership and because of public criticism of Klan violence. By 1944 the Ku Klux Klan had faded out again."
http://www.geocities.com/__izzy__/Dengue/kkk/history.htm

Now even if Black was a KKK member, it could have been in the peaceful time, as a fraternal society.

This does not get Alito off the hook, since he's been making decisions in RECENT history, that goes against liberalism.

zalinda

[QC]

4. Exactly. 1937 is not 2005.

And we have no reason to believe that Alito has experienced a change of heart since writing all those reactionary memos in the Reagan years, trying to keep women out of Princeton, etv.

[rinsd]

9. The KKK as a fraternal society......

Yeah they just held pot lucks and get out the vote efforts...

:eyes:

[Humor_In_Cuneiform]

5. Many people get involved with extremist groups when they are very

young. I don't know if this is what this was about for Justice Black or not.

Byrd was also a member, but very briefly, and has repeatedly renounced and expressed his remorse at having had any association with the KKK.

[AntiCoup2K4]

6. Wouldn't you think that such a man, if he were a racist KKK fuckhead.....

...would have changed his name to Judge WHITE??

[tenshi816]

7. I'm a relative of Justice Black.

I can only speak of my own feelings, arrived at after discussion with other family members over the years, and that is that he regretted ever joining the Klan. He certainly said that he never considered himself a Klansman. I believe Hugo Black's service while he was a Justice proved that he was ultimately a champion of minority rights, but I guess as a member of the family I'm obviously prejudiced in his favor.

I don't see this as a reason to let Alito off the hook at all.

[FredScuttle]

8. The only response to this tired meme

is "yeah? so what?" Whenever *'s defenders whine "but Clinton did it first", I say "so how does that excuse *?"

Hugo Black was one of the most important jurists this country has ever had and his record needs no defense. We're going to get this trifle because conservatives simply have no defense for Alito's racist, misogynist views.