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Category: Hugo Black of Alabama

Remembering Robert Byrd

The passing this week of Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia makes one miss the days when Southern politicians were complicated rather than merely crass. Yes, Byrd clung to office longer than he should have. Yes, he was a master of pork barrel spending. Yes, he lined up with the states’ rights and nullification Dixiecrats in the 1960s. But — like his fellow former Klansman Hugo Black of Alabama — he overcame his racist upbringing and became a supporter of civil rights, a defender of the promises of a living Constitution, and a champion of the poor and middle classes …

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June 29, 2010 No Comments

More on SEF child poverty report

Southern Education Foundation vice president Steve Suitts (author of Hugo Black of Alabama) has followed up on the SEF’s recent report on expanding child poverty with an article on the Southern Spaces website. (Southern Spaces is “an interdisciplinary journal about the regions, places, and cultures of the American South.” Sort of like NewSouth Books.) Suitts writes: “The Worst of Times: Children in Extreme Poverty in the South and Nation raises serious questions about the impact and validity of current educational policies and practices at every level on children in extreme poverty” …

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June 29, 2010 No Comments

Steve Suits Editorial Recalls Hugo Black’s Judicial Opinions

NewSouth author Steve Suitts recently contributed an op-editorial to the Daily Report, Fulton County Georgia’s leading source for legal news and information. In the editorial, Suitts, author of Hugo Black of Alabama: How His Roots and Early Career Shaped the Great Champion of the Constitution, discusses the historical context of a recent Supreme Court ruling which struck down congressional limits on corporate campaign contributions …

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February 8, 2010 No Comments

Howard Ball Praises Steve Suitts's Hugo Black Biography in Alabama Review

Historian and political scientist Howard Ball has reviewed Steve Suitts’s Hugo Black of Alabama for the Alabama Review. In his review, Ball calls the work “outstanding,” noting that Suitts “has painted a portrait that does not avoid the warts and the impulses; he depicts the good and the bad realistically in this successful effort to give his audience … a clear sense of who Hugo Black was and why he acted the way he did” …

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January 3, 2008 No Comments

Hugo Black Author to Speak at Southern Historical Association Meeting

Hugo Black of Alabama author Steve Suitts will speak on “A Liberal Tradition: Alabamians in the U.S. Senate from the Great Depression to the Great Society” on Thursday, November 16, from 9:30-11:30 am, at the annual meeting of the Southern Historical Society, in Birmingham. He will also lead at tour group at 4:45, visiting various historical sites in Birmingham pertaining to the life of Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black.

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November 13, 2006 No Comments

Hugo Black of Alabama Released in eBook Format

Hugo Black of Alabama by Steve Suitts, the award-winning biography of Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, has now been released in Adobe Reader eBook format. Featuring a fully searchable text and hyperlinked index, the electronic release of the book offers a powerful tool for legal scholars, putting the complete history of Justice Black’s life from his youth in Alabama to his time in the US Senate all accessible at the click of a cursor …

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November 1, 2006 No Comments