Thread by @KevinMKruse

When folks like @charliekirk11 cherry-pick history to advance their current-day political agenda, they invariably wind up demonstrating that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Here's a good example. Let's dig in.

https://twitter.com/charliekirk11/status/1091782591882186753

First of all, yes, more than a decade before joining the Supreme Court, Hugo Black had briefly been a member of the Klan in his home state of Alabama before resigning in 1925.

As I've noted here, the 1920s Klan was deeply involved with both parties:

https://twitter.com/KevinMKruse/status/941048303709540352

Black's past ties to the Klan surfaced during his 1937 confirmation hearings.

At the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearings, it was a Democratic Senator -- Royal Copeland of NY -- who led the charge against Black's nomination on the grounds that the Klan past was disqualifying.

And there was outrage outside the Senate too, from the NAACP and others.

You'll note, @charliekirk11, that it was Socialist Party leader Norman Thomas who pressed for the investigation most aggressively.

And Norman Thomas was a *genuine* radical; Hugo Black, not so much.

But ultimately, the support of civil rights leaders -- including NAACP head Walter White and Roy Wilkins, editor of the NAACP's Crisis magazine -- helped shore up the nomination.

The Senate confirmed him 63 for, 16 against. (The "no" votes were 10 Republicans, 6 Democrats.)

Shortly after Black's confirmation, his 1925 resignation letter was published by a reporter, renewing the outrage.

Black explained himself in a radio address: history.com/news/kkk-supre…

Here we get to the key issue:

Hugo Black had briefly been in the Klan, and now the whole world knew it, so what happened next?

Did he act like a Klansman from the bench as his critics worried he would? No.

The 1920s Klan was known for its religious bigotry. It held that Protestantism and Americanism were indistinguishable and therefore Jews, Catholics and other religious minorities were un-American.

On the bench, Black rejected that idea and championed religious minorities.

In the 1940s, he helped reverse an earlier ruling that forced Jehovah's Witnesses to salute the flag (which they considered a graven image and therefore against their faith), and wrote the landmark Everson decision which authorized public funds for Catholic parochial schools.

Most significantly in the realm of religious liberty, Black was the author of Engel v. Vitale (1962), the ruling that established the precedent of "the wall of separation" between church and state -- which was a *stark* departure from the preferences of the 1920s Klan.

So Black demonstrated that, on the big issue of religious bigotry, he was directly opposed to all that the 1920s Klan had embraced.

OK, what about racial issues?

Here too he distinguished himself as a solid supporter of civil rights for African Americans in every case that came before the Court -- on issues of equal schooling (Gaines, 1938), voting rights (Smith v Allright, 1944), housing discrimination (Shelley v Kramer, 1948), etc. etc.

Now, his record on civil rights wasn't perfect -- he authored the Korematsu decision of 1944, upholding Japanese American internment on grounds of "military necessity" -- but he racked up a strong record in the 1950s, voting with the majority in Brown, Cooper, etc.

When Black resigned from the Supreme Court in 1971, he was praised by African Americans for his role as a champion of civil rights.

Here's a typical editorial from the Chicago Defender, perhaps the most outspoken black-owned publication of the time.

As that editorial notes, Hugo Black abandoned his 1920s Klan ties and emerged as an outspoken champion of religious and racial minorities as a Justice. His past wasn't predictive at all.

Now, personally, I think that Ralph Northam should resign his post.

But if @charliekirk11 wants to point to Hugo Black as an example of how someone can overcome their Klan past and make up for it as a public servant, well, I suppose that's his right.