In an effort to to get elected and remain elected, President Franklin Roosevelt made a number of racially-tinged bargains with the the members of the Democratic Party who represented the Southern States - one of them was to nominate Hugo L. Black to the Supreme Court in 1937. The Republicans denounced Black for a number of reasons, pointing out that he was not simply a Klansman but he was also a lawyer for the Klan - an Alabama litigator who looked out for their best interests at every turn. The man who managed his campaign for the U.S. Senate was a Grand Wizard of the Klan. When he was asked to give an account of himself, Black replied:
"The Klan was in effect the underground Democratic Party in Alabama."
This article is concerns a time in 1940 when everyone was so surprised to find that Justice Black had actually decided to give a fair shake to three African-American defendants.
Click here for the Ku Klux Klan Archive.
CLICK HERE to read about African-Americans during the Great Depression.
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