(6 of 10)
Sam went at 16 to the University of North Carolina, where he developed a lifelong fondness for poetry (favoring Tennyson, Kipling and Shakespeare) and a knack for memorizing it. Always a hearty laugher, especially at his own jokes, he was elected president of his senior class and chosen its "best egg."
Shortly before graduation day in 1917, Ervin enlisted as an infantry private in World War I. He was wounded in action twice in France and won the Silver Star for "conspicuous gallantry" and the Distinguished Service Cross.
After returning for brief law study at Chapel Hill, Ervin passed the North Carolina bar examination. But he decided that he needed more training and entered Harvard Law School as an advanced, third-year student. After earning his degree ('22), he then began an unusual career in which he never reached for opportunities but had them thrust upon him. While he was still at Harvard, some friends, without his knowledge, nominated him as a Democratic candidate for the North Carolina legislature. Although eager to begin his law practice, he grudgingly accepted and, to his surprise, won in his Republican district. Ervin's talent for the deft oratorical put-down surfaced in Raleigh. When the state legislature in 1925 was convulsed by a Bible-belt debate over whether to allow the teaching of evolution in public schools, Ervin helped prevent such a ban by ridiculing it. "Only one good thing can come of this," he protested. "The monkeys in the jungle will be pleased to know that the North Carolina legislature has absolved them from any responsibility for humanity in general and for the North Carolina legislature in particular."
After serving three scattered terms, Ervin left the legislature to devote full time to practicing law with his father. "It was from him that I got the feeling that the freedom of the individual—no matter how lowly he is—is fundamental," Ervin recalls. The elder Ervin was especially incensed at any hint of police brutality. Young Sam was reluctantly drawn away from law practice by a series of appointments that Governors or other officials persuaded him to accept: in 1935 as a county court judge, in 1937 as a superior court judge, in 1948 as a state supreme court justice.
During his six years on the North Carolina supreme court, Ervin gained a reputation for making sound judgments and writing clear, well-reasoned decisions. His aim, he says, was to "write decisions that didn't need interpretation," which are a rarity on many courts. Ervin is proudest of his role in the case of a black man who had been convicted of raping a white woman. Suspicious, Ervin pored over the trial's 1,200 pages of testimony, decided that the evidence was inconclusive, and had the man freed. The Senator still recalls what the relieved but resigned man said: "Boss, we never get off death row. We are on death row from the day we be here until the day we die."