The History of a Justice

There has to be one. That one who best understands the pain of Uncle Tom’s piercing stiletto plunge. That one who has been gored so repeatedly that his name is now synonymous with racial treachery. That one who has caused blacks to actually debate whether they should cease naming their children the same name as his. That one without whom the biography of Uncle Tom could not be written unless he was given a central role. That one is Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Clarence was born on June 23, 1948 in Pin Point, Georgia, into an impoverished community that lacked sewage and paved roads. When Clarence was two years old, his father abandoned the family while his mother was pregnant with his brother Myers. Pin Point was segregated, and the same year the Supreme Court decided Brown, 1954, Clarence started first grade at a Jim Crow elementary school.

In 1955, Clarence’s mother, unable to i nancially support them, sent him and his brother to live with her parents in Savannah. Moving in with his grandparents greatly improved the trajectory of Clarence’s life. There, his grandfather taught him to work hard and rely on no one. His grandfather once told him, “I never took a penny from the government because it takes your manhood away.” After Clarence and Myers left Pin Point, Clarence writes, the “vacation [was] over.” They lived in a strict household but in relative luxury.