Brown - Alabama Justice: The Cases and Faces that Changed a Nation

AFTER FIVE YEARS OF GRADUATE work in constitutional law under the supervision of University of Virginia professors David M. OBrien and Henry J. Abraham, I believed that I had a good understanding of many of the Supreme Courts landmark rulings as well as the history behind and parties involved in those decisions. It was not until I took a position at Auburn University in 1998, however, that I noticed how many significant cases that the Court had taken from my adopted state. In my constitutional law classes that first year, I was struck by how many times I seemed to preface my comments with, Heres another great case from Alabama. Presuming that others were as little acquainted as I was with Alabamas connection to the Supreme Court, I considered writing a book about those decisions, but life and other research projects intervened.

Almost twenty years later, I had lunch with Thomas Bryant after hearing a presentation he made on behalf of the Alabama Humanities Foundation. I mentioned some of these landmark cases to him, and as we discussed the upcoming bicentennial of Alabama statehood, Thomas saw the potential for a project that could satisfy my desire to do something with those rulings as well as educate others about them. He put me in touch with Phillip Ratliff and Backstory Educational Media. Together, Phil and I envisioned and, with the help of Jay Lamar and Steve Murray, created a traveling exhibit about significant Supreme Court cases from Alabama that began its two-year tour throughout the state in January 2019. The tremendous interest in and enthusiasm for that exhibition suggested a need for a more detailed treatment of the cases it considered, and this book is the result.

From the beginning, it was a considerably different project from any of my other published research. Although I have incorporated selections of the Courts actual rulings, I have tried to present the information in this book in a way that would make the general principles that it discusses accessible to anyone who has an interest in the Supreme Court. In addition, as my sole motivation in writing was to acquaint others with the cases and faces that have made such a difference in American constitutional law, I have purposely avoided scrutinizing every detail of these cases, the parties that brought the disputes, and the judges who ruled on them. That exercise properly belongs to lengthier treatments about each individual case or justice, many of which are included in the bibliography.

This book would not have been possible without the financial support for the traveling exhibit (for which the initial research that led to this volume was conducted) provided by the Alabama Bicentennial Commission; the Alabama Humanities Foundation; and Auburn Universitys Office of the Vice President for Research, Office of Outreach, College of Liberal Arts, and Department of Political Science. The Alabama Department of Archives and History provided summer research funding that was critical to the completion of this book. The archives also devoted other important resources to the exhibit, as did the Alabama Bicentennial Commission and the Alabama Bench and Bar Historical Society. I am especially grateful to Jay Lamar, executive director of Alabama200, and Steve Murray, director of the Alabama Department of Archives and History, for their support, motivating influence, and friendship.

I gratefully acknowledge the following for their help with my specialized research requests: Nancy Dupree, reference archivist, and the staff at the Alabama Department of Archives and History, Montgomery; LaFrederick Thirkill, principal, Orchard Knob Elementary School, Chattanooga, Tennessee; Matthew Hofstedt, associate curator, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, DC; Fred Schilling, court photographer, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, DC; and Sheila Washington, director, Scottsboro Boys Museum and Cultural Center, Scottsboro.

The University of Alabama Press has once again been a wonderful partner. Dan Watermans support never waned even when my own focus and desire to write sometimes did. Much of the material on Justice John McKinley in the last chapter of this book is drawn from my John McKinley and the Antebellum Supreme Court: Circuit Riding in the Old Southwest(2012), and I want to thank the press for granting permission to use it.