Published to honor the centennial of Suoreme Court Justice Hugo Black's birth, this memior is both a revealing look at life in and around the Supreme Court and a moving love story of devoted spouses.

Published to honor the centennial of Suoreme Court Justice Hugo Black's birth, this memior is both a revealing look at life in and around the Supreme Court and a moving love story of devoted spouses.

In this volume, Howard Ball explores Hugo Black's development from his childhood days growing up in Alabama to his 34 years on the United States Supreme Court. Ball illustrates who and what shaped this controversial judge to become known as one of the "ten greatest" US Supreme Court justices of American history.

"My name will survive as long as man survives, because I am writing the greatest diary that has ever been written. I intend to surpass Pepys as a diarist." When John Frush Knox (1907-1997) wrote these words, he was in the middle of law school, and his attempt at surpassing Pepys—part scrapbook, part social commentary, and part recollection—had already reached 750 pages. His efforts as a chronicler might have landed in a family attic had he not secured an eminent position after graduation as law clerk to Justice James C. McReynolds—arguably one of the most disagreeable justices to sit on the Supreme Court—during the tumultuous year when President Franklin D. Roosevelt tried to "pack" the Court with justices who would approve his New Deal agenda. Knox's memoir instead emerges as a record of one of the most fascinating periods in American history. The Forgotten Memoir of John Knox—edited by Dennis J. Hutchinson and David J. Garrow—offers a candid, at times naïve, insider's view of the showdown between Roosevelt and the Court that took place in 1937. At the same time, it marvelously portrays a Washington culture now long gone. Although the new Supreme Court building had been open for a year by the time Knox joined McReynolds' staff, most of the justices continued to work from their homes, each supported by a small staff. Knox, the epitome of the overzealous and officious young man, after landing what he believes to be a dream position, continually fears for his job under the notoriously rude (and nakedly racist) justice. But he soon develops close relationships with the justice's two black servants: Harry Parker, the messenger who does "everything but breathe" for the justice, and Mary Diggs, the maid and cook. Together, they plot and sidestep around their employer's idiosyncrasies to keep the household running while history is made in the Court. A substantial foreword by Dennis Hutchinson and David Garrow sets the stage, and a gallery of period photos of Knox, McReynolds, and other figures of the time gives life to this engaging account, which like no other recaptures life in Washington, D.C., when it was still a genteel southern town.

"When it comes to justice, there is no easy way to get it. You can't sugarcoat it. You have to take a stand and say, 'This is not right.'" - Claudette Colvin On March 2, 1955, an impassioned teenager, fed up with the daily injustices of Jim Crow segregation, refused to give her seat to a white woman on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Instead of being celebrated as Rosa Parks would be just nine months later, fifteen-year-old Claudette Colvin found herself shunned by her classmates and dismissed by community leaders. Undaunted, a year later she dared to challenge segregation again as a key plaintiff in Browder v. Gayle, the landmark case that struck down the segregation laws of Montgomery and swept away the legal underpinnings of the Jim Crow South. Based on extensive interviews with Claudette Colvin and many others, Phillip Hoose presents the first in-depth account of an important yet largely unknown civil rights figure, skillfully weaving her dramatic story into the fabric of the historic Montgomery bus boycott and court case that would change the course of American history. Claudette Colvin is the National Book Award Winner for Young People's Literature, a Newbery Honor Book, A YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults Finalist, and a Robert F. Sibert Honor Book.

In this sweeping and revealing insider study, Seth Stern and Stephen Wermiel shine a bright light on the life, career, and thought of William Brennan (1906-1997), widely considered the Supreme Court's most influential twentieth-century justice, as well as its greatest liberal and preeminent strategist. Stern and Wermiel make available for the first time a striking new view of Brennan based on what Jeffrey Toobin has called "a coveted set of documents"—Justice Brennan's very personal case histories of the major battles that confronted the Supreme Court during the past half century. Roe v. Wade, affirmative action, the death penalty, obscenity law, and the constitutional right to privacy are among the many controversial and hotly-contested big-picture issues covered in the Brennan annals. But they also provide more intimate glimpses of Brennan's surprising refusal to hire female clerks, even as he wrote groundbreaking opinions relating to women's rights; the complex tension between his commitment to law and his Catholic beliefs; and new details on his unprecedented working relationship with Chief Justice Earl Warren. Drawing upon Wermiel's rare access to the Brennan case histories, half of which will not be released to the public until 2017, and his more than sixty hours of one-on-one interviews with Justice Brennan himself, the authors have crafted a compelling portrait of a judicial giant, filled with details and insights that will further cement Brennan's reputation as an epic playmaker during the Court's most liberal era.