Ashland’s Hugo Black may be one of the most complicated persons you’ll ever encounter. If you thought Sweet Home Alabama was contradictory, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
I apologize for the length here, but perhaps you will find this as fascinating as I do.
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One of eight children, Black was an intellectually gifted child born to a prosperous merchant family in 1886. At age 6, he would go to court and watch the lawyers argue their cases, mentally critiquing the questions they asked and the arguments they presented. He began reading at a very young age, and was an advanced learner well before he even began formal education.