Season 2, Episode 43 (Show 95): Sweet Hugo in Alabama – A Special Live Podcast

October 19, 2022

Andy and Akhil are in Alabama for a live podcast at the festivities surrounding the dedication of the Hugo Black Memorial and Park.  We take a look at the great liberal originalist’s legacy and find him more important than ever.

Amarica’s Constitution is “On the Road” in Alabama for the dedication of the Hugo Black Memorial and Park.  Akhil is the keynote speaker and we record this live podcast at the Symposium that preceded Dedication Day.  For the occasion, we look at the great originalist and see that his moment is now – not only in Alabama, but at the Supreme Court, where case after case tracks his issues, his reasoning, and his method.  Indeed, Black’s greatest cases, including Adamson, Everson, Engel, and Gideon, find continuing relevance today.  Thus informed, we take a look at the coming term’s big cases through the Hugo Black originalist lens.  The audience chimes in with questions; a great time was had by all.

Show Notes:

The Hugo Black Memorial, with some friends

Adamson v. California (1947)

Black’s great dissent in the landmark incorporation case, Adamson v. California, 332 U.S. 46.

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Everson v. Board of Education (1947)

Black writes for the majority in a major free exercise of religion case, Everson v. Board of Education of the town of Ewing, 330 U.S. 1 (1947), in a case which has echoes in the more recent Carson case.

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Gideon v. Wainwright (1963)

With Frankfurter deceased, incorporation has its day, and Black writes the landmark Gideon v. Wainwright, Corrections Director, 372 U.S. 335.  The movie, “Gideon’s Trumpet,” was based on a book about this case written by the great Anthony Lewis.

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