Latest / The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson / Justice Clarence Thomas One-on-One (Part 1)

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Justice Clarence Thomas One-on-One (Part 1) · The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to Verdict with Ted Cruz. I'm Ted Cruz, and
0:03
Speaker 1: today we have a very special podcast. On August twenty fifth,
0:07
Speaker 1: my brand new book is coming out. It's my fifth book,
0:09
Speaker 1: and it is entitled Going Further, The Incomparable Clarence Thomas.
0:14
Speaker 1: And this book does a couple of things. Number One,
0:18
Speaker 1: it tells the story of Justice Thomas, a truly extraordinary
0:21
Speaker 1: human being, an extraordinary justice. It tells his life story,
0:24
Speaker 1: a journey that is unlike the journey of any other
0:27
Speaker 1: justice who has served on the Supreme Court. But it
0:31
Speaker 1: also takes up his three decades of jurisprudence and tries
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Speaker 1: to explain it in a way that is accessible, a
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Speaker 1: way that is understandable, a way that brings home why
0:42
Speaker 1: it matters, why it matters for the Court, why it
0:44
Speaker 1: matters for the Constitution, why it matters for the country
0:47
Speaker 1: and today what makes this podcast very special. And by
0:50
Speaker 1: the way, the book will be available August twenty fifth.
0:52
Speaker 1: You can pre order it. There's a special website for
0:55
Speaker 1: that called Goingfurther dot com. Goingfurther dot com, I would
0:58
Speaker 1: encourage you go to the way website pre ordered the book,
1:01
Speaker 1: and today's podcast is a very special one. Because our
1:04
Speaker 1: guest is none other than the incomparable Justice Clarence Thomas.
1:08
Speaker 2: Justice welcomes, Well, thank you. It's a little embarrassing to
1:12
Speaker 2: be called incomparable. Let me call lots of things. Well,
1:16
Speaker 2: thank you, thank you.
1:18
Speaker 1: I really appreciate your joining us. I think this is
1:20
Speaker 1: the first podcast you've ever done.
1:22
Speaker 2: I have no idea, I think so. I don't normally
1:27
Speaker 2: do any sort of I don't do much media type thing. So,
1:33
Speaker 2: but you're you. I mean, I've known you now but
1:37
Speaker 2: thirty years. Yeah, I'm seeing you through different phases in
1:42
Speaker 2: your life as a law clerk, hanging out in my
1:45
Speaker 2: chambers as the SG at Texas announced senator. So it's
1:52
Speaker 2: been a long journey. And also it's also an opportunity
1:56
Speaker 2: to say you're one of the people who actually stands
1:59
Speaker 2: up uh, particularly at times when others seemed to wither,
2:06
Speaker 2: and I appreciate it, and more personally, when my wife
2:11
Speaker 2: and I were under attack for obvious reasons, you and
2:18
Speaker 2: Mike Lee and some of the other friends of stand
2:22
Speaker 2: up Senator Kennedy, et cetera.
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Speaker 3: So I really appreciate.
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Speaker 1: That, Justice, that that is very kind of you, and
2:29
Speaker 1: especially for you to observe that I stand up in
2:33
Speaker 1: the face of criticism and attacks. That is that is
2:37
Speaker 1: powerful coming from you, because you're someone who knows knows
2:40
Speaker 1: what that's like and has done so in a way
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Speaker 1: that has been been world changing. And so Justice Thomas
2:48
Speaker 1: decades ago wrote a phenomenal autobiography, My Grandfather's Son, and
2:54
Speaker 1: You told your own story, and it's it's, it's it
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Speaker 1: may be the best autobiography I've ever read. I read
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Speaker 1: it at the time it came out. It inspired me. Actually,
3:03
Speaker 1: shortly after it came out, I was at home and
3:08
Speaker 1: as it so happened, a young African American boy came
3:12
Speaker 1: he's probably fifteen sixteen years old, came by the house
3:15
Speaker 1: and I think he was selling magazines or something. Knocked
3:17
Speaker 1: on the door and I struck up a conversation with it.
3:19
Speaker 1: I went and grabbed the book and gave it to
3:20
Speaker 1: him and said, look, you should.
3:22
Speaker 3: Read this this.
3:24
Speaker 1: You may not have heard Justice Thomas's story and journey,
3:28
Speaker 1: but I hope this will inspire you. And I think
3:31
Speaker 1: for a lot of the folks who listen to the
3:33
Speaker 1: podcast or watched the podcast, and some people listen to
3:37
Speaker 1: it on their phones, others watch it on YouTube or Facebook.
3:41
Speaker 1: They know who you are, but they don't know your
3:45
Speaker 1: actual story. And it is, as I mentioned at the beginning,
3:48
Speaker 1: it is unlike any other justices on the court. So
3:51
Speaker 1: maybe we can just start with tell us about growing up.
3:55
Speaker 1: You grew up in Pinpoint, Georgia. What was it like
3:58
Speaker 1: growing up?
4:00
Speaker 2: I was born in Pinpoint, but and most of my
4:03
Speaker 2: growing up I've been fortunate. I think the misfortunes you
4:07
Speaker 2: have can lead to different things. And the house and
4:12
Speaker 2: Pinpoint burnt down, burned down when I was six in
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Speaker 2: the first grade. Then we went and we lived in
4:18
Speaker 2: a tenement with my mother in one room in Savannah
4:21
Speaker 2: for about a year and eventually wound up living with
4:26
Speaker 2: our grandparents, moving there when I was seven, And that
4:30
Speaker 2: was probably, well, actually was the best thing that could
4:34
Speaker 2: have ever happened to me, because that was life changing.
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Speaker 1: You describe in your book, and I recount in my
4:42
Speaker 1: book when you're in that tenement and that it did
4:46
Speaker 1: not have indoor plumbing, and so you used a chamber
4:48
Speaker 1: pot and you describe walking down the stairs carrying a
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Speaker 1: chapel down. Yeah, it ended up being coated in urine.
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Speaker 1: It's a pretty.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, well it was, you know, sort of When I
5:01
Speaker 2: think of people saying they're having a bad day, and
5:06
Speaker 2: you're seven years old, and that happens, and you don't
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Speaker 2: have like a shower or the kind of a bathroom
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Speaker 2: that people would normally have, you realize, I mean they're
5:20
Speaker 2: to me, it defined a bad day, but then things
5:26
Speaker 2: that happened after that are outweigh that. You know, there's
5:30
Speaker 2: a wonderful song by a black minister that you hear
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Speaker 2: from time to time if you go to a funeral
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Speaker 2: at small southern Black churches, and I won't complain, and
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Speaker 2: you know, you can have all these bad things. Just
5:48
Speaker 2: let me of bad things happen, and you can say,
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Speaker 2: I won't complain because it's outweighed by all the good
5:55
Speaker 2: things that have happened. And that's pretty much my life.
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Speaker 2: And those good things began with my grandparents. And my
6:03
Speaker 2: grandfather was a Catholic convert, so which was an oddity.
6:08
Speaker 2: Catholics were an oddity in Savannah. Black Catholics were really
6:13
Speaker 2: an oddity, and it was because of that we were
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Speaker 2: educated at parochial schools with my Irish nuns and those
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Speaker 2: in combination my grandparents and neighborhood. I grew up in
6:28
Speaker 2: the nuns. Catholicism forged on a foundation that I've benefited
6:37
Speaker 2: from well.
6:39
Speaker 1: And your deep faith is integral to who you are.
6:43
Speaker 1: Who you are as a man. I think who you
6:45
Speaker 1: are as a justice to your journey. Many people don't
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Speaker 1: know you almost became a priest, and for a long
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Speaker 1: time you thought that's what you wanted to do.
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Speaker 3: Well, I think I would have been a priest.
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Speaker 2: And had the bishops at the time, or the leadership
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Speaker 2: and the church been as firm and has had the
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Speaker 2: resolve of the nuns during segregation and desegregation and civil
7:10
Speaker 2: rights movement, et cetera. My nuns were immovable interesting as
7:16
Speaker 2: far as their propagation of the faith, their belief in us.
7:22
Speaker 2: They were the ones who planted the seed that in
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Speaker 2: God's eyes and you heard it at home too, were
7:29
Speaker 2: all equal that God made it, We were made in
7:33
Speaker 2: His image and likeness.
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Speaker 1: And so were the nuns more willing to speak out
7:38
Speaker 1: about civil rights.
7:39
Speaker 2: They were in their way, of course, they they had
7:43
Speaker 2: a vow of chastity and poverty and obedience.
7:48
Speaker 3: So there's only so much.
7:50
Speaker 2: But they were adamant, and they were adamant outwardly to
7:54
Speaker 2: the world and inwardly to us, so we couldn't use
8:00
Speaker 2: race or some of the other things as excuses. And
8:03
Speaker 2: it's hard to put it in context. But when I
8:08
Speaker 2: was in the second and third grade, this is again
8:11
Speaker 2: post Brown, and the Georgia legislature was in the midst
8:15
Speaker 2: of drafting legislation that was reasserting segregation. And so it's people.
8:22
Speaker 1: And for our listeners, Brown and Brown versus Board of
8:25
Speaker 1: Education right, which was a seminal, seminal Supreme Court decision
8:28
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty four that overturned plusy versus Ferguson, Plus versus Ferguson,
8:34
Speaker 1: I think is one of the most almost everyone thinks
8:37
Speaker 1: is one of the most disgraceful decisions the courts has
8:39
Speaker 1: ever decided. Where it it embraced the doctrine of separate
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Speaker 1: but equal, and Brown overturned it and ordered that schools
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Speaker 1: be desegregated. And you were you were a student when this,
8:51
Speaker 1: I mean this impacted your life.
8:53
Speaker 2: Well, I started first grade in nineteen fifty four, but
8:57
Speaker 2: still schools was still second cregated.
9:01
Speaker 3: And when I went.
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Speaker 1: Do you remember, as a little kid, like being a
9:04
Speaker 1: first grader, were you aware of Brown at the time?
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Speaker 2: Well, no, Brown had almost I mean you're a kid. Yeah,
9:10
Speaker 2: in school was meant you got like a new pair
9:12
Speaker 2: of pants. And it was the first time I had
9:15
Speaker 2: been to school. I went with my cousins, a little
9:17
Speaker 2: school called Haven Homes School. But then when the house
9:21
Speaker 2: burned down, I moved. And there's a big difference between
9:24
Speaker 2: urban poverty and rural. And rural we were with relatives.
9:30
Speaker 2: It was we were always together. You could run around barefooted,
9:34
Speaker 2: and everybody knew.
9:35
Speaker 1: You grow up with English as your first language.
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Speaker 2: Well, there was a version. We people know it now
9:43
Speaker 2: they celebrated. Back then, they used to make fun of us.
9:47
Speaker 2: In Georgia, there's a dialect called Geechee, and in South
9:50
Speaker 2: Carolina they call it Gullah. But it's just it's a
9:54
Speaker 2: petois that for people who were not who did not
10:01
Speaker 2: assimilate in the culture, or who were not a part
10:04
Speaker 2: of the culture. We were isolated near the water, so
10:08
Speaker 2: you kept that language. And that's the way until I
10:12
Speaker 2: moved to Savannah. That was all I knew. They called us.
10:16
Speaker 2: Back then, they said we were bad talking. Today they
10:19
Speaker 2: celebrated it was a cultural thing. But when I moved
10:24
Speaker 2: to Savannah, you were in urban poverty, which was quite different.
10:29
Speaker 2: And I'm not going to go into all the details,
10:31
Speaker 2: but then when you go when I went to live
10:34
Speaker 2: with my grandparents, even though schools were segregated, they were
10:39
Speaker 2: parochial schools, and that was different from the public schools
10:45
Speaker 2: because there was quite a.
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Speaker 3: Bit of order.
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Speaker 2: You wore uniform, the bell rang at a certain time,
10:50
Speaker 2: you said the pledge of allegiance in the school yard
10:54
Speaker 2: before you marched in. You had religion, you hadochism. Class
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Speaker 2: was the first class. It was every unison, good morning, sister.
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Speaker 2: There was a lot of order, and that's what my
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Speaker 2: grandfather wanted.
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Speaker 1: Now, I think anyone understanding your life has to start
11:14
Speaker 1: by understanding your grandfather. You were raised by your grandparents principally,
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Speaker 1: and your grandfather, myrs Anderson. I think you would say
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Speaker 1: was the most important man in your life. And tell
11:24
Speaker 1: us about your grandfather.
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Speaker 2: Well, I mean he was not only the most important.
11:29
Speaker 2: I think he's the greatest man I've known. And my
11:32
Speaker 2: grandmother is the greatest woman. They were, And that's what
11:37
Speaker 2: I mean when I say, look, you can look at
11:39
Speaker 2: the negative side of things, but the blessings are enormous.
11:43
Speaker 2: I mean to be Just think of the idea of
11:45
Speaker 2: living with those two people and being raised by them,
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Speaker 2: and you can, after all these years say that they
11:53
Speaker 2: are the two greatest people you've ever known.
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Speaker 1: Well, and he instilled a lot of discipline in you.
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Speaker 1: He was, I think a hard man and a strong man.
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Speaker 2: Where you're from Texas. When you live a hard life,
12:08
Speaker 2: you have to be hard or you collapse. I mean
12:11
Speaker 2: the day we are inundated with fragile people, you are
12:16
Speaker 2: not permitted. I mean, you live in poverty and you
12:19
Speaker 2: have to figure things out. And he had total of
12:22
Speaker 2: nine months of education. My grandmother had six years, and
12:26
Speaker 2: those weren't six full years, six nine months. On they
12:31
Speaker 2: knew how to make do with life. They knew how
12:34
Speaker 2: to make a way in the world without no education.
12:40
Speaker 2: So things that we have today like education, freedom, etc.
12:46
Speaker 2: They prize they dreamt about. They wanted us to have
12:50
Speaker 2: a chance to have those things.
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Speaker 1: Well, and your grandparents prioritized education with you and reading
12:56
Speaker 1: in particular that that became an outlet for you as
12:59
Speaker 1: a boy.
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Speaker 2: Well, they were absolute about education. But the other thing
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Speaker 2: was work. He didn't believe in sports. That was foolishness.
13:08
Speaker 2: We didn't have time for that. We delivered fuel oil
13:12
Speaker 2: in the winter and we farmed in the summer.
13:16
Speaker 1: On August twenty fifth, my brand new book comes out,
13:19
Speaker 1: Going Further, The Incomparable Clarence Thomas. It tells the story
13:24
Speaker 1: of Justice Thomas, one of the true American hero is
13:27
Speaker 1: an incredible story. It's based on nine and a half
13:30
Speaker 1: hours of one on one exclusive interviews with Justice Thomas.
13:34
Speaker 1: You could pre order it right now at the website
13:36
Speaker 1: Goingfurther dot com. Goingfurther dot Com. Click on the link
13:41
Speaker 1: now and pre order the book today. You know, one
13:45
Speaker 1: story you told that stood out to me is that
13:47
Speaker 1: when you were delivering fuel oil and there were times
13:49
Speaker 1: when it was really cold, your grandfather wouldn't let you
13:52
Speaker 1: wear gloves.
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Speaker 2: Now he'd gotten he lost a finger on his right hand,
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Speaker 2: and he never really got too much into the details
14:04
Speaker 2: of it, but it must have involved the glove because
14:08
Speaker 2: he would not I know, he got gott in a
14:11
Speaker 2: chain or winch was something that ripped it off about
14:14
Speaker 2: right about the first knuckle or below the first knuckle,
14:19
Speaker 2: And so he would make us work with no gloves,
14:28
Speaker 2: and for us cold would be forty degrees in Georgia.
14:32
Speaker 2: You felt like you were freezing. But he believed it
14:36
Speaker 2: was a way not to be harsh or anything like that.
14:39
Speaker 2: It was he thought safety or safer not to have
14:43
Speaker 2: gloves on.
14:44
Speaker 1: Now you tell a story about being in Catholic High
14:49
Speaker 1: school and one of the boys passing you a note
14:54
Speaker 1: about Martin Luther King. Tell us that that story and
14:58
Speaker 1: how it impacted you.
14:59
Speaker 2: Well, it was only that was only one student out
15:04
Speaker 2: of dozens, and there was one bad apple, and he
15:09
Speaker 2: wasn't there very long. But it was my first year
15:12
Speaker 2: in the seminary and there were two of us, two
15:14
Speaker 2: blacks in the seminary. I was the only one in
15:16
Speaker 2: my class. I was a sophomore. There was a young
15:19
Speaker 2: man behind me in the ninth grade. And the note
15:23
Speaker 2: was I mean, it was offensive, but it wasn't debilitating.
15:28
Speaker 2: And you say, you consider the sender and it just
15:32
Speaker 2: said on the outside something like I like Martin Luther King.
15:40
Speaker 2: And then you opened it up and said dead on
15:42
Speaker 2: the inside something like that.
15:44
Speaker 3: And it was you know, again.
15:46
Speaker 2: This is nineteen sixty four, sixty five, A lot going on,
15:50
Speaker 2: and you know, I knew who it was. I know
15:53
Speaker 2: who it is. I'm not going to say who it was.
15:56
Speaker 2: But he left after a year or so and that
16:00
Speaker 2: was that. But the rest of my classmates were.
16:05
Speaker 3: And have been just phenomenal. You know.
16:08
Speaker 2: They I was treated better there in the minor seminary,
16:14
Speaker 2: because remember where at the beginning of desegregation. This is
16:18
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty four. The next two years after my first year,
16:22
Speaker 2: I'd be the only black in that school. And I
16:25
Speaker 2: was treated very well. I was a really good student.
16:29
Speaker 2: I was treated fairly. That The great thing about it
16:31
Speaker 2: was if you got a ninety five in physics, you
16:34
Speaker 2: got a ninety five in physics. Latin was a nemesis
16:38
Speaker 2: of most kids. I did very, very well at Saint
16:43
Speaker 2: John vi Ani Minor Seminaries, and I have zero complaints.
16:47
Speaker 2: It was again one of the benefits that I received
16:52
Speaker 2: in Savannah. I was treated and I'd like to say
16:55
Speaker 2: this for obvious reasons. I was treated better there, and
16:58
Speaker 2: I was at Yale.
17:00
Speaker 1: Well, and and uh your time at Yale. In fact,
17:06
Speaker 1: you draw an analogy between two kinds of snakes, which
17:10
Speaker 1: I think is revealing well.
17:12
Speaker 2: I think most people who live in rural areas know
17:14
Speaker 2: the difference. My grandfather always used this analogy. And if
17:19
Speaker 2: you the difference between a rattlesnake and a marcasin which
17:23
Speaker 2: we had both and they were pretty big in Georgia
17:26
Speaker 2: and South Georgia. A rattlesnake always warned you, and if
17:30
Speaker 2: you gave it time, it'll get out of your way
17:33
Speaker 2: and leave you.
17:33
Speaker 3: You leave me alone, I'll leave you alone.
17:36
Speaker 2: A Marcusin was basically wouldn't warn you, and its attitude was, look,
17:41
Speaker 2: I was here first, and you're going to have a
17:43
Speaker 2: bad day, and I'm not moving. But his point was
17:47
Speaker 2: about the warning that you had some people in Georgia
17:51
Speaker 2: who didn't like blacks, and they were bigots, and they
17:54
Speaker 2: were openly so.
17:55
Speaker 1: And what you said is the Southern the Southern racist
17:58
Speaker 1: were they were They made noise and they were visible.
18:03
Speaker 1: But when you went to the North and the Northeast,
18:06
Speaker 1: they were like moccasins. They were hidden until they'd strike.
18:10
Speaker 2: And and the attitude that was sort of one of
18:13
Speaker 2: the things that surprised me. We were told basically that
18:17
Speaker 2: the North was the holy Grail. So it was shocking
18:23
Speaker 2: to see in New England the kind of ethnic divisions,
18:27
Speaker 2: the bigotry toward minorities, et cetera.
18:31
Speaker 1: Now, what is it that attracted you to being a priest,
18:33
Speaker 1: because that's that's what you thought you wanted to spend
18:35
Speaker 1: your life doing.
18:36
Speaker 2: Well I'm Catholic. I was an altar boy. I loved
18:41
Speaker 2: being an altar boy. I loved We used to get
18:44
Speaker 2: these magazines, the marin Old Priests and uh serving you know,
18:50
Speaker 2: kids who were had disease, or were poor, or were
18:56
Speaker 2: having difficulties, and you get you began you begin to
19:00
Speaker 2: feel that that would be a good way to spend
19:02
Speaker 2: your life. And then it becomes an issue when you
19:05
Speaker 2: enter the minor seminary. It's really a time of discernment
19:09
Speaker 2: and to see whether you have the capabilities. And I
19:14
Speaker 2: like the idea of being called to serve to do that.
19:19
Speaker 2: You know, when you have a vocation, you're asking yourself,
19:24
Speaker 2: what is God calling me to do? And that became
19:28
Speaker 2: actually again, but for the weakness of the bishops, I
19:34
Speaker 2: think I'd be a priest today, or not specific bishops,
19:40
Speaker 2: but the church itself seemed to be vacillating on the
19:43
Speaker 2: issue of race. And to me, the big, the major
19:48
Speaker 2: wrong in the country, the major contradiction in this country
19:54
Speaker 2: was the race issue that you treat you can place
19:59
Speaker 2: in the important of equality at the center of your
20:03
Speaker 2: founding document, right, and then you have this issue of
20:07
Speaker 2: slavery and its offshoots.
20:11
Speaker 1: Well, and the church was slow to recognize that. One
20:16
Speaker 1: point that I make many times is you look at
20:22
Speaker 1: doctor King's letter from Birmingham jail, and people forget to
20:26
Speaker 1: whom it is addressed. It's addressed to the clergy of America.
20:30
Speaker 1: He's writing to the leaders of the church saying, wake
20:33
Speaker 1: up and speak up. And my favorite portion of that letter,
20:39
Speaker 1: there's a group of senators, bipartisan senators who regularly read
20:44
Speaker 1: that letter on the floor of the Senate. It's really
20:46
Speaker 1: powerful to read the words out loud. And there's a
20:49
Speaker 1: portion in it where he says the church should be
20:52
Speaker 1: a thermostat and not a thermometer, that it should be
20:55
Speaker 1: changing society and not just reacting to what's around. That's
21:00
Speaker 1: ultimately what led you to leave, leave the seminary and
21:03
Speaker 1: say that that you were not going to go down
21:05
Speaker 1: the path of a b.
21:06
Speaker 2: I think it was I think it was an overreaction.
21:08
Speaker 2: I think I was nineteen years.
21:09
Speaker 1: Old and when doctor King was assassinated, that was.
21:14
Speaker 3: That was a moment.
21:15
Speaker 2: That was I was in my first year in college
21:18
Speaker 2: in the seminary where I would love to I love
21:21
Speaker 2: the Benedictines. I was there and magnic exception Seminary in Missouri.
21:25
Speaker 2: I loved being there, the people, it was wonderful. But
21:31
Speaker 2: it was it was not there that things were difficult.
21:35
Speaker 2: It was the world around me. It was the church generally.
21:40
Speaker 2: I thought that as a sort of a moral beacon,
21:45
Speaker 2: we should talk about the court, that we should have
21:48
Speaker 2: taken a leadership role in the church.
21:52
Speaker 4: All right, I want to take a second. I want
21:53
Speaker 4: to talk to you about a way that you can
21:55
Speaker 4: have a huge difference in the life of someone that
21:58
Speaker 4: desperately needs you right now. If you're going to change
22:02
Speaker 4: someone's life, you want to know it actually lasts. And
22:05
Speaker 4: that is one of the reasons why I want you
22:07
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22:53
Speaker 1: Now, you went from the Seminary to holy Cross and
22:56
Speaker 1: then Yale Law School. A lot of people people listening,
23:00
Speaker 1: I mean, they know you were one of the greatest
23:04
Speaker 1: conservative leaders to have ever lived, but as a young man,
23:08
Speaker 1: you were not in any way, shape or form a conservative.
23:12
Speaker 1: To tell folks what your worldview was as a nineteen
23:17
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one.
23:18
Speaker 2: Year old, well, I think when you're nineteen and you're angry,
23:22
Speaker 2: you're confused. For the most part, I came from a
23:25
Speaker 2: very traditional background. In fact, as I went through that period,
23:30
Speaker 2: when I quit the seminary and returned home, my grandfather
23:33
Speaker 2: invited me to leave his house immediately, and so I've
23:38
Speaker 2: basically been on my own since then. And of course,
23:40
Speaker 2: as you're.
23:41
Speaker 3: Nineteen, and that was a hard moment, Oh, that was.
23:43
Speaker 2: It was more than hard, and hard as an understate
23:47
Speaker 2: the And it was in that vein or in that
23:51
Speaker 2: posture that I wound up going to New England in
23:54
Speaker 2: sort of a negative posture.
23:57
Speaker 3: And I think we have we react to our.
24:02
Speaker 2: Circumstances in certain ways, and I was reacting to the
24:08
Speaker 2: church's have sort of not doing what it should be doing.
24:14
Speaker 2: I react, overreacted. I reacted as a nineteen year olds emotionally.
24:19
Speaker 1: And you were angry at the time, you were angry
24:21
Speaker 1: at God. You stopped going to mass.
24:22
Speaker 2: I well, I left the church completely, and I think
24:28
Speaker 2: if I had it to do over, I wouldn't. I
24:32
Speaker 2: would not have left the church. And I think it's
24:36
Speaker 2: a matter. And this is the point my grandfather was
24:39
Speaker 2: making at the time. He said, you're throwing the baby
24:42
Speaker 2: out with the bath water. That it is people not
24:46
Speaker 2: living up to what is right that's the problem, not
24:51
Speaker 2: the underlying principles. So the church to believe the tenants
24:55
Speaker 2: of the church are not wrong. It's that the people
24:58
Speaker 2: are failing in living up to that. But at any rate,
25:02
Speaker 2: when you're young, you don't make those fine distinctions. So
25:06
Speaker 2: I think an easy way to deal with that, or
25:09
Speaker 2: a quick way or to sort of respond when you're
25:15
Speaker 2: that age is to find these sort of radical movements
25:19
Speaker 2: you participate in. You protest, sort of let off steam,
25:25
Speaker 2: and you're angry and you feel empowered by that anger.
25:30
Speaker 2: But then as time goes on, you take a step
25:32
Speaker 2: back and you start thinking about what you're doing probably.
25:36
Speaker 2: You know, my grandfather asked me a question, and I've
25:39
Speaker 2: said this before. I would come return home and he
25:43
Speaker 2: would be upset with me, and he would say, after
25:46
Speaker 2: all his sacrifices, this is what I've become. And he
25:52
Speaker 2: would challenge me because I'd say, the country's racist and
25:57
Speaker 2: we need to destroy it and all that thing. And
26:00
Speaker 2: he said, and when you destroy, where you're going to go?
26:03
Speaker 2: That was always the unanswerable question, where what country is
26:08
Speaker 2: better than this country with all its problems, to which
26:12
Speaker 2: I had no answer. So I think it's that planted
26:17
Speaker 2: the seed of doubt the from this and as I
26:21
Speaker 2: grew older and more mature and thought about things. In fact,
26:26
Speaker 2: about the time I was at Yale and had participated
26:29
Speaker 2: in enough enough sort of demonstrations.
26:35
Speaker 1: Well, and you you took part in a protest that
26:39
Speaker 1: that became a riot in Harvard Square.
26:42
Speaker 2: Youre Alma mine, Yeah, just I could save your trouble,
26:48
Speaker 2: And that was that was sort of I think that
26:51
Speaker 2: was the road to Damascus moment. That's the moment where
26:57
Speaker 2: you look into the the abyss and it looked back.
27:00
Speaker 1: Well, you realize that it could have gone much worse
27:03
Speaker 1: for you. You could have been thrown in jail. You
27:04
Speaker 1: could have been expelled from school.
27:06
Speaker 2: Well, I couldn't answer why I was doing it. You know, again,
27:10
Speaker 2: it goes back when you asked a hard question, why
27:15
Speaker 2: why didn't I just do what I just did, to
27:19
Speaker 2: spend all night doing something I don't quite understand.
27:23
Speaker 3: But that return. It was.
27:28
Speaker 2: April sixteen, nineteen seventy. So I returned the Holy Cross
27:33
Speaker 2: from Cambridge and passed, walked in front of the chapel
27:38
Speaker 2: because I was exhausted but couldn't sleep, walked in front
27:42
Speaker 2: of the chapel. And again, I'm not attending or anything,
27:46
Speaker 2: but I am still deeply Catholic, and I face it
27:50
Speaker 2: and to bless His sacrament. And I asked God to
27:53
Speaker 2: take hate out of my heart. And I said, if
27:55
Speaker 2: you take hate out of my heart, I will never
27:57
Speaker 2: hate again. And that was the moment when you begin
28:01
Speaker 2: to for me, when I began to move in a
28:04
Speaker 2: more positive direction, when you begin to offload, it's like
28:08
Speaker 2: it was like lancing a boil, and it's long.
28:12
Speaker 3: It was long. You're radic.
28:14
Speaker 2: There was not a straight line, but it was away
28:17
Speaker 2: from the thing that it consumed me.
28:21
Speaker 1: Well, and even when you were a left wing radical,
28:27
Speaker 1: you could see glimmers of the man that Clarence Thomas
28:30
Speaker 1: would become. That that, in many ways I think was
28:34
Speaker 1: the wisdom your grandfather and your grandmother had imparted to you.
28:37
Speaker 1: But you could see the individualist you have never liked
28:42
Speaker 1: to conform.
28:42
Speaker 3: That well, I don't like being told what to do. Yeah,
28:45
Speaker 3: that's I just think when you.
28:51
Speaker 2: The nuns made it clear that when God created us,
28:54
Speaker 2: it was mind, soul, and body, and you don't just
28:59
Speaker 2: liberate the and that you were responsible. You committed us in.
29:06
Speaker 2: It wasn't because the devil didn't make you do it.
29:09
Speaker 2: You did it. You gave in, You made the decision,
29:13
Speaker 2: and you were responsible, and you didn't do your homework.
29:16
Speaker 2: You were responsible. Excuses didn't count. And my grandfather was
29:22
Speaker 2: that way. You were accountable. And that's similarly when you
29:29
Speaker 2: made it was my life and I wasn't. I'm not
29:33
Speaker 2: talking about being a libertine or anything like that. It's
29:36
Speaker 2: more libertarian right that you believe in liberty, and that
29:40
Speaker 2: means you have to take responsibility for it. And I
29:43
Speaker 2: really didn't like people saying you have to do this,
29:46
Speaker 2: you have to do that. We had to saying that
29:48
Speaker 2: you are only two things I have to do, stay
29:51
Speaker 2: black and die, And that was a retort to people
29:55
Speaker 2: who had these sort of requirements for us, these mandates
30:01
Speaker 2: for us because of our skin color and thing that's
30:04
Speaker 2: really kind of interesting.
30:06
Speaker 3: It wasn't until later on.
30:08
Speaker 2: That people began to say that when I came to
30:12
Speaker 2: this town, one of the greatest difficulties, if you if
30:15
Speaker 2: you think about it, was that there were those who
30:18
Speaker 2: thought that I should think a certain way. And the
30:21
Speaker 2: difficulty has been that they said that, oh, you're confused. Well,
30:26
Speaker 2: I'm not confused. You're confused. You confuse me with someone
30:30
Speaker 2: who's been an indentured servitude or something. But at any rate,
30:37
Speaker 2: they think that here's the way you're supposed to think. Again,
30:42
Speaker 2: here's your skin color. There's this kind of deterministic view
30:45
Speaker 2: that you're supposed to think this because we say so.
30:49
Speaker 2: And I of course declined that invitation. And so now
30:53
Speaker 2: that means it's something that I'm a walking contradiction because
30:58
Speaker 2: I've deviated from their perception of what I should think.
31:01
Speaker 2: Explain to me how that is different. Here's what I've
31:05
Speaker 2: asked people. I said, when I was a kid, the
31:07
Speaker 2: Savannah Public Library was segregated. I said, do you think
31:13
Speaker 2: it was right that the Savannah Public Library was segregated?
31:17
Speaker 3: Oh? No, you should have been able to go in.
31:20
Speaker 2: I said, what if they allowed me in but said
31:22
Speaker 2: I couldn't go to certain floors? That would be wrong.
31:26
Speaker 2: I said, what about what if they said you couldn't
31:30
Speaker 2: go to certain stacks? Well, that would be wrong. What
31:33
Speaker 2: if they had certain books marked that were off limits
31:37
Speaker 2: to me? That would be wrong. Then my question is,
31:39
Speaker 2: why is it then that you have a problem with
31:42
Speaker 2: me embracing certain ideas in certain books? What's the difference?
31:47
Speaker 2: Of course, that's unanswerable. In fact, if I would prefer
31:51
Speaker 2: not to go into building to not being able to
31:54
Speaker 2: embrace the ideas that I find that I agree with
31:58
Speaker 2: or that are important.
32:00
Speaker 1: Well, by any measure, one of your greatest legacies in
32:04
Speaker 1: the Court, and there are many, but has been on race.
32:07
Speaker 1: And you have been a clarion voice in your entire
32:11
Speaker 1: tenure on the Court for the principle that the Constitution
32:16
Speaker 1: does not allow racial distinctions, does not allow racial discrimination.
32:20
Speaker 1: The Constitution is color blind and protects everyone. You know,
32:25
Speaker 1: it's interesting as you tell the story or the analogy
32:29
Speaker 1: of the library and then the stacks and the books
32:31
Speaker 1: that you might not be allowed to read one story
32:34
Speaker 1: you have told as a young man. I think in
32:36
Speaker 1: law school somebody gave you a copy of a book
32:40
Speaker 1: by Thomas Soul and you started to read it and
32:43
Speaker 1: throw it in the trash and said, if I remember right,
32:45
Speaker 1: that no black man can think this way.
32:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, as Black Education, Myths and Tragedies. I think that
32:51
Speaker 2: one of his early books, and he laughs about it.
32:55
Speaker 2: Then of course he sent me a copy just to
32:58
Speaker 2: make sure I add it in. In the after law school,
33:04
Speaker 2: I was working in jeff City. It's one of those
33:07
Speaker 2: hops's choices that's I wound up. Were the only job
33:10
Speaker 2: offer a hand. But it's the best job I've ever had.
33:13
Speaker 1: But all the fancy law firms wouldn't give you it. All.
33:15
Speaker 1: You came out of Gale Law School, did really well
33:17
Speaker 1: in law school.
33:18
Speaker 2: And I always tell them now when I see them, Uh,
33:22
Speaker 2: they're the reason I'm on the court, because but for them,
33:25
Speaker 2: i'd be a tax lawyer someplace. And they were they
33:29
Speaker 2: woke now, but they were fast asleep when I got
33:31
Speaker 2: out of school. So anyways, God works in mysterious ways.
33:36
Speaker 2: I wind up in jeff City and.
33:39
Speaker 1: I working for Jack Dan for the Attorney general in Missouri.
33:42
Speaker 3: Absolutely wonderful man.
33:44
Speaker 1: And your classmates were asking, what are you doing going
33:47
Speaker 1: to work for a Republican. Yeah, he was the only
33:49
Speaker 1: one who would give you a job.
33:50
Speaker 2: He was the only one who gave me a job.
33:52
Speaker 2: I mean I had trouble with that. I mean I
33:54
Speaker 2: was dying. Remember I just voted for a governor. Yeah,
33:57
Speaker 2: you know, and I thought he was too concerned. So
34:00
Speaker 2: you can see ideologically where I was. But I go
34:03
Speaker 2: to work for him, best job ever ever had.
34:06
Speaker 1: Well, and you said, when you came in, he said, look,
34:08
Speaker 1: I don't want to work on matters of race. I
34:12
Speaker 1: don't want to be treated differently than anyone else, said,
34:14
Speaker 1: And you joked that he took you very seriously. Justice
34:20
Speaker 1: Clarence Thomas's epic journey from poverty in Georgia through faith, anger,
34:27
Speaker 1: and an extraordinary intellectual transformation would ultimately take him to
34:32
Speaker 1: the highest court in the land. In part two of
34:35
Speaker 1: the special edition of Verdict, Justice Thomas takes us inside
34:39
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court and shares how he approaches the constitution, precedent,
34:45
Speaker 1: individual liberty, and the responsibility that comes with a lifetime
34:49
Speaker 1: appointment to the Court. That conversation continues in Part two
34:54
Speaker 1: of Verdict with Ted Cruz