ABSTRACT
On August 12, 1937, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, rebounding from the worst setback of his long Presidency, took the first of a series of steps toward creating what historians would one day call “the Roosevelt Court". Roosevelt was urged to drop the Court bill, since replacing Van Devanter with a liberal would give the Administration a decisive margin in most cases. Roosevelt had added to this anxiety when, at a press conference on July 27, he said that he was exploring the possibility of making the appointment after the Senate had adjourned. While Roosevelt’s prospects were imperiled by the unexpected turn of events, Black’s life had become all but unendurable. Ray Sprigle began, “Hugo Lafayette Black, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, is a member of the hooded brotherhood that for ten long blood-drenched years ruled the Southland with lash and noose and torch, the Invisible Empire, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.
