My Grandfather's Son: A Memoir

317 Pages·2008·232.388 MB·English

by  Clarence Thomas

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
PRAISE FOR
My Grandfather's Son
"Justice Thomas describes his intellectual journey, and his struggle
to keep body and soul together on meager government pay, in
some of the book's most absorbing and self-critical chapters."
-William Grimes, The New York Times
"The book of the year for Americans tired of politics as usual."
-The Denver Post
"Candid. ... A fascinating glimpse into a tortured, complex, and
often perplexing personality" -The Washington Post Book World
"Very rewarding reading. ... While there is anger in the boo~­
justifiable anger, one might argue-· there is also tenderness,
vulnerability, brutal honesty, and overflowing gratitude .... There
is also unswerving intellectual integrity" -Mona Charen
"The conservative book of the year. ... Candid, moving, and well
written, it chronicles the life of a truly remarkable man who may
well be the single greatest living American office-holder."
-The American Spectator ·
''Absorbing." --The Economist
''Thomas speaks candidly about the mistakes he made that fueled
his determination to overcome all odds to be appointed to the
nation's highest court." -The Oklahoman
''An original addition to those great black autobiographies of the
past. ... A lesson on how to live in freedom-a lesson that begins
with a description of poverty on a par with Richard Wright's
portrait of poverty in Black Boy . ... Thomas is now an archetype
that will inspire ot~ers. I can think of no greater achievement."
-Shelby Steele, National Review
"My Grandfather's Son is a fascinating and irresistible read."
-The New York Sun
''A transcendent work. ... My Grandfather's Son is a coming of age in
the fullest sense .... A meditation of time and perspective and the
shifts in outlook both can bring. ... A memoir of raw honesty"
-The Oregonian
"Engrossing." -Jack and Suzy Welch, BusinessWeek
"Riveting. ... A classic work of American political biography ...
,'
No matter what you think you know about Clarence Thomas, you
don't know the half or tenth of it unless and until you have read
this book." -Hugh Hewitt, Townhall.com
"Thomas is refreshingly candid about the depths of his suffering,
and one comes away with a deep sadness about our broken
politics and the ferocious disincentives for anyone to seek high
government appointment." -Newsday
MY SON
GRANDFATHE~S
MY
GRANDFATHE~S
SON
A Memoir
CLARENCE THOMAS
e
HARPER PERENNIAL
NEW YORK• LONDON• TORONTO• SYDNEY• NEW DELHI• AUCKLAND
HARPER % PERENNIAL
The author gratefully acknowledges Senator Jack Danforth for permission tc;:> reprint
his letter. And Juan Williams, author and journalist, for permission to reprint part of
his op-ed column.
"The Greatest Love of All." Words by Linda Creed. Music by Michael Masser.
Copright © 1977 EMI Gold Horizon Music Corp. and EMI Golden Torch Music
Corp. Print rights administered by Alfred Publishing Co., Inc. All rights reserved. Used
by permission of Alfred Publishing Co., Inc.
Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version ~- Copyright rt;: 1973,
1978, 1984 by International Bible Society Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights
reserved.
A hardcover edition of this book was published in 2007 by HarperCollins Publishers.
MY. GRANDFATHERS SON. Copyright 'c' 2007 by Clarence Thomas. All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or repro
duced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of
brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address
HarperCollins Publishers, IO East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022.
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lishers, IO East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022.
FIRST HARPER PERENNIAL EDITION PCBLISHID 2008.
Designed by Joseph Rutt
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
is available upon request.
ISBN 978-0-06-056556-5
08 09 IO II 12 ID 'RRD I 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 I
I
To my mother, Leola Williams,
who gave me life;
my grandparents Myers and Christine Anderson,
who taught me how to live;
and my brother, Myers Lee Thomas,
whom I loved
CONTENTS
Pref<ice
1X
I Sun to Sun I
2 As Good as Us 29
3 The Corridor 49
4 No Room at the Top 67
5 The Golden Handcuffs 91
6 A Q!estion of Will 121
7 "Son, Stand Up" 151
8 Approaching the Bench 191
9 Invitation to a Lynching 241
Going to Meet the Man 261
IO
PREFACE
In the course of writing this book, I spent far too many solitary
hours facing blank pages, digging through dusty boxes full of half
forgotten files, and plowing up long-untilled parts of my past. It was
a new experience, and a strange one. I'd never been in the habit of
looking back at the portion of life that I'd already lived. Most of the
time, I needed all my strength to deal with the life I was then living,
with all of its uncertainties, doubts, and fears. I had no idea how it
would turn out. Now I know-up to a point. It is the story of an
ordinary man to whom extraordinary things happened. Putting it
down on paper forced me to suffer old hurts, endure old pains, and
revisit old doubts. At times I was surprised by how fresh my feelings
still were.
Difficult though it was to relive the past, at least I no longer had to
endure the insecurity of my early years. In those days I had nothing
to go on but hope, and often not nearly enough of that. I didn't know
then, as I know now, that I had learned in childhood everything I
needed to negotiate the challenges and difficulties that lay ahead. You
never know that at the time. All you can do is put one foot in front of
the other and "play the hand that you're dealt," as my grandfather so
often said. That's \vhat I did: I did my best and hoped for the best,
x Preface
too often fearing that I was getting the worst. In fact, though, I got
everything I needed. Much of it came .from two people, my grandfa
ther and grandmother, who gave me what I needed to endure and,
eventually, to prosper. They are the glue that held together the dispa
rate pieces of my life, and holds them together to this day
You will read about my grandparents here, along with some of
the other people I met along the way Only a few of their names will
be familiar to you, and many others I have regretfully left unnamed,
in the interest of brevity Most of the people I've known, and nearly
all of the important ones, are anything but famous. Yet their story is
my story: their st~uggles in the face of futility, their perseverance
through accumulated injustices, their resilience in the face of
broken promises. and dashed dreams, their hopefulness in the face
of impenetrable bigotry, and their unrequited love for a country
that often seemed to reject them at every turn.
Part of the reason for wanting to tell my story was to bear witness
to what these people. did for me, though I also wanted to leave
behind an accurate record of my own life as I remember it. "Only
the man who makes the voyage," William F. Buckley Jr., has said,
"can speak truly about it." Parts of my voyage have already been
written about by other people, but some of what they've written has
been untrue, at times grossly so, and I didn't want to leave the tell
ing to those with careless hands or malicious hearts. Rightly or
wrongly, I have an abiding faith that my story will someday be im
portant to someone, and so I have done my best to speak truly in
these pages about my family, my friends, and myself
I'VE ACCOMPLISHED LITTLE in my life without the help of
others. This book is no different. I mostly worked on it alone, but I
couldn't have done that work without God's help and the support of
a long list of caring people. Always at the top of the list is Virginia,