Steve Suitts is the author of Hugo Black of Alabama. He was born in Winston County, Alabama, in October 1949. (Winston seceded from Alabama when the state seceded from the Union in the "Great War.") Growing up in Alabama, he attended Haleyville Elementary School, where he enjoyed Governor "Big Jim" Folsom's speeches, field trips, and baseball. He attended Appleby Junior High School and Coffee High School in Florence, Alabama, where he played basketball (much more poorly than his older brother), was secretary of the student council, and was in charge of "bumper stickers" for north Alabama in Congressman Carl Elliott's unsuccessful bid to defeat George Wallace and his wife, Lurleen, who was running for governor.