Chapter 8 (136 kb, PDF)

With a post-war depression approaching, Birmingham explodes into political and economic warfare along lines of class and race. The 1920 US Senate race between Breck Musgrove and incumbent Oscar W. Underwood is a nasty prelude to an all-consuming miners strike where black and white members of the United Mine Workers resist the industrialists' attempts to destroy the union. Hugo Black helps lead union efforts to challenge in court the race-baiting tactics of the Underwood campaign....

This passage begins at the start of the chapter and examines the Underwood campaign and Black's attempts to stop the Underwood campaign's tactics.