The Antagonists

James Simon, dean of the New York Law School, examined the civil liberties movement through the eyes of two 20th century Supreme Court members in The Antagonists: Hugo Black, Felix Frankfurter and Civil Liberties in Modern America. Black, raised in Alabama, served as Senator and was appointed to the Court by Franklin Roosevelt. His efforts as a trial judge in his younger years were echoed later as he championed the rights of minorities as the liberal leader of the Court. Frankfurter, an Austrian immigrant, became dean of Harvard Law School before his appointment as a Supreme Court justice. Though he became more conservative over the years, he was one of the original founders of the ACLU. In addition to examining their lives Simon also looked at a number of important civil rights cases that came before Black and Frankfurter when they served on the Supreme Court. close