Some memories of Charles L. Black, Jr.

AuthorWeinstein, Jack B.
PositionColumbia Law School law professor

Let the lens of your recollection Travel over me.... (1)

Charles Lund Black, Jr. was one of the smartest men I knew. He was also one of the most decent, warm, and intellectually well-rounded.

Charlie was the first of the new professors appointed to the Columbia Law faculty after World War II. He drew upon his training in sociology to teach a new course in jurisprudence. (2) As a student, I held him in some awe. Fifty years ago, when I joined the faculty, he became a friend and mentor.

Charlie, Julius Goebel, Jr., the historian, and I shared a suite. It was a beautiful old-fashioned, high-ceilinged, spacious set of offices with an anteroom, on the top floor of Kent Hall. Charlie's office overlooked the lively Columbia campus; Julius's viewed Alma Mater; and through my window on the inner courtyard I saw Rodin's "The Thinker," whose example insinuated that we should cogitate every moment.

We three were a metaphor for a small train. Julius was in the caboose with a spyglass explaining the places we had been. Charlie was up front blowing the whistle and telling us where we were going and why. (I doubt that he thought that as a law professor he could change the direction of the track in the slightest.) I was in the car in between tending our student passengers as best I could, while polishing the brass and sweeping as needed--and getting advice from both ends of the rattler.

We taught each other how many things could be done in a day. One day Charlie came in and observed my desk piled high with advance sheets. "Jack," he said, "you don't have to read all those advance sheets. If you fall behind throw them away and start over." What a relief. Off they went into the wastebasket. Suddenly life as a professor seemed possible.

One of our joint activities was swimming. There was a pool at the bottom of the old power house. You undressed at the campus level and then walked naked with your towel over your shoulder down a long curving flight of stone steps to the water. One day as we descended side-by-side, a young woman came up around the bend. "Is this the way to Butler Hall?," she asked.

"No," Charlie responded. He politely explained how to go back down and around.

"Thank you," she said as she turned away. She did not seem to notice our lack of attire. Charlie and I continued our conversation. For me it was probably a sociological turning point. For Charlie it seemed, well, "humdrum."

The practice at Columbia was for three senior faculty members to...

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