August 24, 2026 • 34 mins
In this episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz, Senator Ted Cruz welcomes Justice Thomas for a rare and personal discussion about his life story, from growing up in segregated Georgia to attending Yale Law School, confronting racism in both the South and the North, and developing the constitutional philosophy that would define his career on the Supreme Court. Thomas reflects on the people, ideas, and moments that shaped his thinking and helped forge one of the most consequential judicial careers of the modern era.
Before he became a Supreme Court justice, Clarence Thomas experienced poverty in Georgia, considered the priesthood, wrestled with anger over racial injustice, and underwent a profound intellectual transformation. In this special conversation, he reflects on the experiences that shaped his life and worldview.Joined by Senator Ted Cruz, Justice Thomas discusses his upbringing in Pin Point and Savannah, Georgia, the decisive influence of his grandparents, and the role faith played throughout his life. He shares memories of segregation, Catholic education, and the lessons in discipline, responsibility, and perseverance that guided him from childhood to the nation's highest court.The conversation also explores his years in the seminary, his reaction to the civil rights era, his departure from the church as a young man, and the personal journey that eventually brought him back to foundational principles of faith and individual responsibility.
Topics Covered:
- Thomas's childhood in Pin Point and Savannah, Georgia
- The influence of his grandparents, particularly Myers Anderson
- Faith, Catholic education, and his years in the seminary
- Segregation, the civil rights movement, and Brown v. Board of Education
- His intellectual and political evolution through college and law school
- Individual responsibility, liberty, and constitutional principles
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Verdict with Ted Cruz. I'm Ted Cruz, and
today we have a very special podcast. On August twenty fifth,
my brand new book is coming out. It's my fifth book,
and it is entitled Going Further, The Incomparable Clarence Thomas.
And this book does a couple of things. Number One,
it tells the story of Justice Thomas, a truly extraordinary
(00:21):
human being, an extraordinary justice. It tells his life story,
a journey that is unlike the journey of any other
justice who has served on the Supreme Court. But it
also takes up his three decades of jurisprudence and tries
to explain it in a way that is accessible, a
way that is understandable, a way that brings home why
(00:42):
it matters, why it matters for the Court, why it
matters for the Constitution, why it matters for the country
and today what makes this podcast very special. And by
the way, the book will be available August twenty fifth.
You can pre order it. There's a special website for
that called Goingfurther dot com. Goingfurther dot com, I would
encourage you go to the way website pre ordered the book,
and today's podcast is a very special one. Because our
(01:04):
guest is none other than the incomparable Justice Clarence Thomas.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Justice welcomes, Well, thank you. It's a little embarrassing to
be called incomparable. Let me call lots of things. Well,
thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
I really appreciate your joining us. I think this is
the first podcast you've ever done.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
I have no idea, I think so. I don't normally
do any sort of I don't do much media type thing. So,
but you're you. I mean, I've known you now but
thirty years. Yeah, I'm seeing you through different phases in
your life as a law clerk, hanging out in my
(01:45):
chambers as the SG at Texas announced senator. So it's
been a long journey. And also it's also an opportunity
to say you're one of the people who actually stands
up uh, particularly at times when others seemed to wither,
(02:06):
and I appreciate it, and more personally, when my wife
and I were under attack for obvious reasons, you and
Mike Lee and some of the other friends of stand
up Senator Kennedy, et cetera.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
So I really appreciate.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
That, Justice, that that is very kind of you, and
especially for you to observe that I stand up in
the face of criticism and attacks. That is that is
powerful coming from you, because you're someone who knows knows
what that's like and has done so in a way
that has been been world changing. And so Justice Thomas
(02:48):
decades ago wrote a phenomenal autobiography, My Grandfather's Son, and
You told your own story, and it's it's, it's it
may be the best autobiography I've ever read. I read
it at the time it came out. It inspired me. Actually,
shortly after it came out, I was at home and
as it so happened, a young African American boy came
(03:12):
he's probably fifteen sixteen years old, came by the house
and I think he was selling magazines or something. Knocked
on the door and I struck up a conversation with it.
I went and grabbed the book and gave it to
him and said, look, you should.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
Read this this.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
You may not have heard Justice Thomas's story and journey,
but I hope this will inspire you. And I think
for a lot of the folks who listen to the
podcast or watched the podcast, and some people listen to
it on their phones, others watch it on YouTube or Facebook.
They know who you are, but they don't know your
(03:45):
actual story. And it is, as I mentioned at the beginning,
it is unlike any other justices on the court. So
maybe we can just start with tell us about growing up.
You grew up in Pinpoint, Georgia. What was it like
growing up?
Speaker 2 (04:00):
I was born in Pinpoint, but and most of my
growing up I've been fortunate. I think the misfortunes you
have can lead to different things. And the house and
Pinpoint burnt down, burned down when I was six in
the first grade. Then we went and we lived in
a tenement with my mother in one room in Savannah
(04:21):
for about a year and eventually wound up living with
our grandparents, moving there when I was seven, And that
was probably, well, actually was the best thing that could
have ever happened to me, because that was life changing.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
You describe in your book, and I recount in my
book when you're in that tenement and that it did
not have indoor plumbing, and so you used a chamber
pot and you describe walking down the stairs carrying a
chapel down. Yeah, it ended up being coated in urine.
It's a pretty.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Yeah, well it was, you know, sort of When I
think of people saying they're having a bad day, and
you're seven years old, and that happens, and you don't
have like a shower or the kind of a bathroom
that people would normally have, you realize, I mean they're
(05:20):
to me, it defined a bad day, but then things
that happened after that are outweigh that. You know, there's
a wonderful song by a black minister that you hear
from time to time if you go to a funeral
at small southern Black churches, and I won't complain, and
(05:45):
you know, you can have all these bad things. Just
let me of bad things happen, and you can say,
I won't complain because it's outweighed by all the good
things that have happened. And that's pretty much my life.
And those good things began with my grandparents. And my
grandfather was a Catholic convert, so which was an oddity.
(06:08):
Catholics were an oddity in Savannah. Black Catholics were really
an oddity, and it was because of that we were
educated at parochial schools with my Irish nuns and those
in combination my grandparents and neighborhood. I grew up in
the nuns. Catholicism forged on a foundation that I've benefited
(06:37):
from well.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
And your deep faith is integral to who you are.
Who you are as a man. I think who you
are as a justice to your journey. Many people don't
know you almost became a priest, and for a long
time you thought that's what you wanted to do.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
Well, I think I would have been a priest.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
And had the bishops at the time, or the leadership
and the church been as firm and has had the
resolve of the nuns during segregation and desegregation and civil
rights movement, et cetera. My nuns were immovable interesting as
(07:16):
far as their propagation of the faith, their belief in us.
They were the ones who planted the seed that in
God's eyes and you heard it at home too, were
all equal that God made it, We were made in
His image and likeness.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
And so were the nuns more willing to speak out
about civil rights.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
They were in their way, of course, they they had
a vow of chastity and poverty and obedience.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
So there's only so much.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
But they were adamant, and they were adamant outwardly to
the world and inwardly to us, so we couldn't use
race or some of the other things as excuses. And
it's hard to put it in context. But when I
was in the second and third grade, this is again
(08:11):
post Brown, and the Georgia legislature was in the midst
of drafting legislation that was reasserting segregation. And so it's people.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
And for our listeners, Brown and Brown versus Board of
Education right, which was a seminal, seminal Supreme Court decision
nineteen fifty four that overturned plusy versus Ferguson, Plus versus Ferguson,
I think is one of the most almost everyone thinks
is one of the most disgraceful decisions the courts has
ever decided. Where it it embraced the doctrine of separate
(08:45):
but equal, and Brown overturned it and ordered that schools
be desegregated. And you were you were a student when this,
I mean this impacted your life.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Well, I started first grade in nineteen fifty four, but
still schools was still second cregated.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
And when I went.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Do you remember, as a little kid, like being a
first grader, were you aware of Brown at the time?
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Well, no, Brown had almost I mean you're a kid. Yeah,
in school was meant you got like a new pair
of pants. And it was the first time I had
been to school. I went with my cousins, a little
school called Haven Homes School. But then when the house
burned down, I moved. And there's a big difference between
urban poverty and rural. And rural we were with relatives.
(09:30):
It was we were always together. You could run around barefooted,
and everybody knew.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
You grow up with English as your first language.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Well, there was a version. We people know it now
they celebrated. Back then, they used to make fun of us.
In Georgia, there's a dialect called Geechee, and in South
Carolina they call it Gullah. But it's just it's a
petois that for people who were not who did not
(10:01):
assimilate in the culture, or who were not a part
of the culture. We were isolated near the water, so
you kept that language. And that's the way until I
moved to Savannah. That was all I knew. They called us.
Back then, they said we were bad talking. Today they
celebrated it was a cultural thing. But when I moved
(10:24):
to Savannah, you were in urban poverty, which was quite different.
And I'm not going to go into all the details,
but then when you go when I went to live
with my grandparents, even though schools were segregated, they were
parochial schools, and that was different from the public schools
(10:45):
because there was quite a.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
Bit of order.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
You wore uniform, the bell rang at a certain time,
you said the pledge of allegiance in the school yard
before you marched in. You had religion, you hadochism. Class
was the first class. It was every unison, good morning, sister.
There was a lot of order, and that's what my
grandfather wanted.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Now, I think anyone understanding your life has to start
by understanding your grandfather. You were raised by your grandparents principally,
and your grandfather, myrs Anderson. I think you would say
was the most important man in your life. And tell
us about your grandfather.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Well, I mean he was not only the most important.
I think he's the greatest man I've known. And my
grandmother is the greatest woman. They were, And that's what
I mean when I say, look, you can look at
the negative side of things, but the blessings are enormous.
I mean to be Just think of the idea of
living with those two people and being raised by them,
(11:50):
and you can, after all these years say that they
are the two greatest people you've ever known.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Well, and he instilled a lot of discipline in you.
He was, I think a hard man and a strong man.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Where you're from Texas. When you live a hard life,
you have to be hard or you collapse. I mean
the day we are inundated with fragile people, you are
not permitted. I mean, you live in poverty and you
have to figure things out. And he had total of
nine months of education. My grandmother had six years, and
(12:26):
those weren't six full years, six nine months. On they
knew how to make do with life. They knew how
to make a way in the world without no education.
So things that we have today like education, freedom, etc.
(12:46):
They prize they dreamt about. They wanted us to have
a chance to have those things.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Well, and your grandparents prioritized education with you and reading
in particular that that became an outlet for you as
a boy.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Well, they were absolute about education. But the other thing
was work. He didn't believe in sports. That was foolishness.
We didn't have time for that. We delivered fuel oil
in the winter and we farmed in the summer.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
On August twenty fifth, my brand new book comes out,
Going Further, The Incomparable Clarence Thomas. It tells the story
of Justice Thomas, one of the true American hero is
an incredible story. It's based on nine and a half
hours of one on one exclusive interviews with Justice Thomas.
You could pre order it right now at the website
(13:36):
Goingfurther dot com. Goingfurther dot Com. Click on the link
now and pre order the book today. You know, one
story you told that stood out to me is that
when you were delivering fuel oil and there were times
when it was really cold, your grandfather wouldn't let you
wear gloves.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Now he'd gotten he lost a finger on his right hand,
and he never really got too much into the details
of it, but it must have involved the glove because
he would not I know, he got gott in a
chain or winch was something that ripped it off about
(14:14):
right about the first knuckle or below the first knuckle,
And so he would make us work with no gloves,
and for us cold would be forty degrees in Georgia.
You felt like you were freezing. But he believed it
(14:36):
was a way not to be harsh or anything like that.
It was he thought safety or safer not to have
gloves on.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Now you tell a story about being in Catholic High
school and one of the boys passing you a note
about Martin Luther King. Tell us that that story and
how it impacted you.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Well, it was only that was only one student out
of dozens, and there was one bad apple, and he
wasn't there very long. But it was my first year
in the seminary and there were two of us, two
blacks in the seminary. I was the only one in
my class. I was a sophomore. There was a young
(15:19):
man behind me in the ninth grade. And the note
was I mean, it was offensive, but it wasn't debilitating.
And you say, you consider the sender and it just
said on the outside something like I like Martin Luther King.
(15:40):
And then you opened it up and said dead on
the inside something like that.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
And it was you know, again.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
This is nineteen sixty four, sixty five, A lot going on,
and you know, I knew who it was. I know
who it is. I'm not going to say who it was.
But he left after a year or so and that
was that. But the rest of my classmates were.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
And have been just phenomenal. You know.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
They I was treated better there in the minor seminary,
because remember where at the beginning of desegregation. This is
nineteen sixty four. The next two years after my first year,
I'd be the only black in that school. And I
was treated very well. I was a really good student.
(16:29):
I was treated fairly. That The great thing about it
was if you got a ninety five in physics, you
got a ninety five in physics. Latin was a nemesis
of most kids. I did very, very well at Saint
John vi Ani Minor Seminaries, and I have zero complaints.
It was again one of the benefits that I received
(16:52):
in Savannah. I was treated and I'd like to say
this for obvious reasons. I was treated better there, and
I was at Yale.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Well, and and uh your time at Yale. In fact,
you draw an analogy between two kinds of snakes, which
I think is revealing well.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
I think most people who live in rural areas know
the difference. My grandfather always used this analogy. And if
you the difference between a rattlesnake and a marcasin which
we had both and they were pretty big in Georgia
and South Georgia. A rattlesnake always warned you, and if
you gave it time, it'll get out of your way
(17:33):
and leave you.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
You leave me alone, I'll leave you alone.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
A Marcusin was basically wouldn't warn you, and its attitude was, look,
I was here first, and you're going to have a
bad day, and I'm not moving. But his point was
about the warning that you had some people in Georgia
who didn't like blacks, and they were bigots, and they
were openly so.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
And what you said is the Southern the Southern racist
were they were They made noise and they were visible.
But when you went to the North and the Northeast,
they were like moccasins. They were hidden until they'd strike.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
And and the attitude that was sort of one of
the things that surprised me. We were told basically that
the North was the holy Grail. So it was shocking
to see in New England the kind of ethnic divisions,
the bigotry toward minorities, et cetera.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Now, what is it that attracted you to being a priest,
because that's that's what you thought you wanted to spend
your life doing.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Well I'm Catholic. I was an altar boy. I loved
being an altar boy. I loved We used to get
these magazines, the marin Old Priests and uh serving you know,
kids who were had disease, or were poor, or were
having difficulties, and you get you began you begin to
(19:00):
feel that that would be a good way to spend
your life. And then it becomes an issue when you
enter the minor seminary. It's really a time of discernment
and to see whether you have the capabilities. And I
like the idea of being called to serve to do that.
You know, when you have a vocation, you're asking yourself,
(19:24):
what is God calling me to do? And that became
actually again, but for the weakness of the bishops, I
think I'd be a priest today, or not specific bishops,
but the church itself seemed to be vacillating on the
issue of race. And to me, the big, the major
(19:48):
wrong in the country, the major contradiction in this country
was the race issue that you treat you can place
in the important of equality at the center of your
founding document, right, and then you have this issue of
slavery and its offshoots.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Well, and the church was slow to recognize that. One
point that I make many times is you look at
doctor King's letter from Birmingham jail, and people forget to
whom it is addressed. It's addressed to the clergy of America.
He's writing to the leaders of the church saying, wake
(20:33):
up and speak up. And my favorite portion of that letter,
there's a group of senators, bipartisan senators who regularly read
that letter on the floor of the Senate. It's really
powerful to read the words out loud. And there's a
portion in it where he says the church should be
a thermostat and not a thermometer, that it should be
(20:55):
changing society and not just reacting to what's around. That's
ultimately what led you to leave, leave the seminary and
say that that you were not going to go down
the path of a b.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
I think it was I think it was an overreaction.
I think I was nineteen years.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Old and when doctor King was assassinated, that was.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
That was a moment.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
That was I was in my first year in college
in the seminary where I would love to I love
the Benedictines. I was there and magnic exception Seminary in Missouri.
I loved being there, the people, it was wonderful. But
it was it was not there that things were difficult.
(21:35):
It was the world around me. It was the church generally.
I thought that as a sort of a moral beacon,
we should talk about the court, that we should have
taken a leadership role in the church.
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Speaker 1 (22:53):
Now, you went from the Seminary to holy Cross and
then Yale Law School. A lot of people people listening,
I mean, they know you were one of the greatest
conservative leaders to have ever lived, but as a young man,
you were not in any way, shape or form a conservative.
To tell folks what your worldview was as a nineteen
(23:17):
twenty twenty one.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Year old, well, I think when you're nineteen and you're angry,
you're confused. For the most part, I came from a
very traditional background. In fact, as I went through that period,
when I quit the seminary and returned home, my grandfather
invited me to leave his house immediately, and so I've
basically been on my own since then. And of course,
(23:40):
as you're.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
Nineteen, and that was a hard moment, Oh, that was.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
It was more than hard, and hard as an understate
the And it was in that vein or in that
posture that I wound up going to New England in
sort of a negative posture.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
And I think we have we react to our.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Circumstances in certain ways, and I was reacting to the
church's have sort of not doing what it should be doing.
I react, overreacted. I reacted as a nineteen year olds emotionally.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
And you were angry at the time, you were angry
at God. You stopped going to mass.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
I well, I left the church completely, and I think
if I had it to do over, I wouldn't. I
would not have left the church. And I think it's
a matter. And this is the point my grandfather was
making at the time. He said, you're throwing the baby
out with the bath water. That it is people not
(24:46):
living up to what is right that's the problem, not
the underlying principles. So the church to believe the tenants
of the church are not wrong. It's that the people
are failing in living up to that. But at any rate,
when you're young, you don't make those fine distinctions. So
(25:06):
I think an easy way to deal with that, or
a quick way or to sort of respond when you're
that age is to find these sort of radical movements
you participate in. You protest, sort of let off steam,
and you're angry and you feel empowered by that anger.
(25:30):
But then as time goes on, you take a step
back and you start thinking about what you're doing probably.
You know, my grandfather asked me a question, and I've
said this before. I would come return home and he
would be upset with me, and he would say, after
all his sacrifices, this is what I've become. And he
(25:52):
would challenge me because I'd say, the country's racist and
we need to destroy it and all that thing. And
he said, and when you destroy, where you're going to go?
That was always the unanswerable question, where what country is
better than this country with all its problems, to which
I had no answer. So I think it's that planted
(26:17):
the seed of doubt the from this and as I
grew older and more mature and thought about things. In fact,
about the time I was at Yale and had participated
in enough enough sort of demonstrations.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Well, and you you took part in a protest that
that became a riot in Harvard Square.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Youre Alma mine, Yeah, just I could save your trouble,
And that was that was sort of I think that
was the road to Damascus moment. That's the moment where
you look into the the abyss and it looked back.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Well, you realize that it could have gone much worse
for you. You could have been thrown in jail. You
could have been expelled from school.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Well, I couldn't answer why I was doing it. You know, again,
it goes back when you asked a hard question, why
why didn't I just do what I just did, to
spend all night doing something I don't quite understand.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
But that return. It was.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
April sixteen, nineteen seventy. So I returned the Holy Cross
from Cambridge and passed, walked in front of the chapel
because I was exhausted but couldn't sleep, walked in front
of the chapel. And again, I'm not attending or anything,
but I am still deeply Catholic, and I face it
(27:50):
and to bless His sacrament. And I asked God to
take hate out of my heart. And I said, if
you take hate out of my heart, I will never
hate again. And that was the moment when you begin
to for me, when I began to move in a
more positive direction, when you begin to offload, it's like
it was like lancing a boil, and it's long.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
It was long. You're radic.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
There was not a straight line, but it was away
from the thing that it consumed me.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Well, and even when you were a left wing radical,
you could see glimmers of the man that Clarence Thomas
would become. That that, in many ways I think was
the wisdom your grandfather and your grandmother had imparted to you.
But you could see the individualist you have never liked
(28:42):
to conform.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
That well, I don't like being told what to do. Yeah,
that's I just think when you.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
The nuns made it clear that when God created us,
it was mind, soul, and body, and you don't just
liberate the and that you were responsible. You committed us in.
It wasn't because the devil didn't make you do it.
You did it. You gave in, You made the decision,
(29:13):
and you were responsible, and you didn't do your homework.
You were responsible. Excuses didn't count. And my grandfather was
that way. You were accountable. And that's similarly when you
made it was my life and I wasn't. I'm not
(29:33):
talking about being a libertine or anything like that. It's
more libertarian right that you believe in liberty, and that
means you have to take responsibility for it. And I
really didn't like people saying you have to do this,
you have to do that. We had to saying that
you are only two things I have to do, stay
black and die, And that was a retort to people
(29:55):
who had these sort of requirements for us, these mandates
for us because of our skin color and thing that's
really kind of interesting.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
It wasn't until later on.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
That people began to say that when I came to
this town, one of the greatest difficulties, if you if
you think about it, was that there were those who
thought that I should think a certain way. And the
difficulty has been that they said that, oh, you're confused. Well,
I'm not confused. You're confused. You confuse me with someone
(30:30):
who's been an indentured servitude or something. But at any rate,
they think that here's the way you're supposed to think. Again,
here's your skin color. There's this kind of deterministic view
that you're supposed to think this because we say so.
And I of course declined that invitation. And so now
(30:53):
that means it's something that I'm a walking contradiction because
I've deviated from their perception of what I should think.
Explain to me how that is different. Here's what I've
asked people. I said, when I was a kid, the
Savannah Public Library was segregated. I said, do you think
(31:13):
it was right that the Savannah Public Library was segregated?
Speaker 3 (31:17):
Oh? No, you should have been able to go in.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
I said, what if they allowed me in but said
I couldn't go to certain floors? That would be wrong.
I said, what about what if they said you couldn't
go to certain stacks? Well, that would be wrong. What
if they had certain books marked that were off limits
to me? That would be wrong. Then my question is,
why is it then that you have a problem with
(31:42):
me embracing certain ideas in certain books? What's the difference?
Of course, that's unanswerable. In fact, if I would prefer
not to go into building to not being able to
embrace the ideas that I find that I agree with
or that are important.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
Well, by any measure, one of your greatest legacies in
the Court, and there are many, but has been on race.
And you have been a clarion voice in your entire
tenure on the Court for the principle that the Constitution
does not allow racial distinctions, does not allow racial discrimination.
(32:20):
The Constitution is color blind and protects everyone. You know,
it's interesting as you tell the story or the analogy
of the library and then the stacks and the books
that you might not be allowed to read one story
you have told as a young man. I think in
law school somebody gave you a copy of a book
by Thomas Soul and you started to read it and
(32:43):
throw it in the trash and said, if I remember right,
that no black man can think this way.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
Yeah, as Black Education, Myths and Tragedies. I think that
one of his early books, and he laughs about it.
Then of course he sent me a copy just to
make sure I add it in. In the after law school,
I was working in jeff City. It's one of those
hops's choices that's I wound up. Were the only job
(33:10):
offer a hand. But it's the best job I've ever had.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
But all the fancy law firms wouldn't give you it. All.
You came out of Gale Law School, did really well
in law school.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
And I always tell them now when I see them, Uh,
they're the reason I'm on the court, because but for them,
i'd be a tax lawyer someplace. And they were they
woke now, but they were fast asleep when I got
out of school. So anyways, God works in mysterious ways.
I wind up in jeff City and.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
I working for Jack Dan for the Attorney general in Missouri.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
Absolutely wonderful man.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
And your classmates were asking, what are you doing going
to work for a Republican. Yeah, he was the only
one who would give you a job.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
He was the only one who gave me a job.
I mean I had trouble with that. I mean I
was dying. Remember I just voted for a governor. Yeah,
you know, and I thought he was too concerned. So
you can see ideologically where I was. But I go
to work for him, best job ever ever had.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
Well, and you said, when you came in, he said, look,
I don't want to work on matters of race. I
don't want to be treated differently than anyone else, said,
And you joked that he took you very seriously. Justice
Clarence Thomas's epic journey from poverty in Georgia through faith, anger,
(34:27):
and an extraordinary intellectual transformation would ultimately take him to
the highest court in the land. In part two of
the special edition of Verdict, Justice Thomas takes us inside
the Supreme Court and shares how he approaches the constitution, precedent,
individual liberty, and the responsibility that comes with a lifetime
(34:49):
appointment to the Court. That conversation continues in Part two
of Verdict with Ted Cruz
Welcome to Verdict with Ted Cruz. I'm Ted Cruz, and
today we have a very special podcast. On August twenty fifth,
my brand new book is coming out. It's my fifth book,
and it is entitled Going Further, The Incomparable Clarence Thomas.
And this book does a couple of things. Number One,
it tells the story of Justice Thomas, a truly extraordinary
(00:21):
human being, an extraordinary justice. It tells his life story,
a journey that is unlike the journey of any other
justice who has served on the Supreme Court. But it
also takes up his three decades of jurisprudence and tries
to explain it in a way that is accessible, a
way that is understandable, a way that brings home why
(00:42):
it matters, why it matters for the Court, why it
matters for the Constitution, why it matters for the country
and today what makes this podcast very special. And by
the way, the book will be available August twenty fifth.
You can pre order it. There's a special website for
that called Goingfurther dot com. Goingfurther dot com, I would
encourage you go to the way website pre ordered the book,
and today's podcast is a very special one. Because our
(01:04):
guest is none other than the incomparable Justice Clarence Thomas.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Justice welcomes, Well, thank you. It's a little embarrassing to
be called incomparable. Let me call lots of things. Well,
thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
I really appreciate your joining us. I think this is
the first podcast you've ever done.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
I have no idea, I think so. I don't normally
do any sort of I don't do much media type thing. So,
but you're you. I mean, I've known you now but
thirty years. Yeah, I'm seeing you through different phases in
your life as a law clerk, hanging out in my
(01:45):
chambers as the SG at Texas announced senator. So it's
been a long journey. And also it's also an opportunity
to say you're one of the people who actually stands
up uh, particularly at times when others seemed to wither,
(02:06):
and I appreciate it, and more personally, when my wife
and I were under attack for obvious reasons, you and
Mike Lee and some of the other friends of stand
up Senator Kennedy, et cetera.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
So I really appreciate.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
That, Justice, that that is very kind of you, and
especially for you to observe that I stand up in
the face of criticism and attacks. That is that is
powerful coming from you, because you're someone who knows knows
what that's like and has done so in a way
that has been been world changing. And so Justice Thomas
(02:48):
decades ago wrote a phenomenal autobiography, My Grandfather's Son, and
You told your own story, and it's it's, it's it
may be the best autobiography I've ever read. I read
it at the time it came out. It inspired me. Actually,
shortly after it came out, I was at home and
as it so happened, a young African American boy came
(03:12):
he's probably fifteen sixteen years old, came by the house
and I think he was selling magazines or something. Knocked
on the door and I struck up a conversation with it.
I went and grabbed the book and gave it to
him and said, look, you should.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
Read this this.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
You may not have heard Justice Thomas's story and journey,
but I hope this will inspire you. And I think
for a lot of the folks who listen to the
podcast or watched the podcast, and some people listen to
it on their phones, others watch it on YouTube or Facebook.
They know who you are, but they don't know your
(03:45):
actual story. And it is, as I mentioned at the beginning,
it is unlike any other justices on the court. So
maybe we can just start with tell us about growing up.
You grew up in Pinpoint, Georgia. What was it like
growing up?
Speaker 2 (04:00):
I was born in Pinpoint, but and most of my
growing up I've been fortunate. I think the misfortunes you
have can lead to different things. And the house and
Pinpoint burnt down, burned down when I was six in
the first grade. Then we went and we lived in
a tenement with my mother in one room in Savannah
(04:21):
for about a year and eventually wound up living with
our grandparents, moving there when I was seven, And that
was probably, well, actually was the best thing that could
have ever happened to me, because that was life changing.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
You describe in your book, and I recount in my
book when you're in that tenement and that it did
not have indoor plumbing, and so you used a chamber
pot and you describe walking down the stairs carrying a
chapel down. Yeah, it ended up being coated in urine.
It's a pretty.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Yeah, well it was, you know, sort of When I
think of people saying they're having a bad day, and
you're seven years old, and that happens, and you don't
have like a shower or the kind of a bathroom
that people would normally have, you realize, I mean they're
(05:20):
to me, it defined a bad day, but then things
that happened after that are outweigh that. You know, there's
a wonderful song by a black minister that you hear
from time to time if you go to a funeral
at small southern Black churches, and I won't complain, and
(05:45):
you know, you can have all these bad things. Just
let me of bad things happen, and you can say,
I won't complain because it's outweighed by all the good
things that have happened. And that's pretty much my life.
And those good things began with my grandparents. And my
grandfather was a Catholic convert, so which was an oddity.
(06:08):
Catholics were an oddity in Savannah. Black Catholics were really
an oddity, and it was because of that we were
educated at parochial schools with my Irish nuns and those
in combination my grandparents and neighborhood. I grew up in
the nuns. Catholicism forged on a foundation that I've benefited
(06:37):
from well.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
And your deep faith is integral to who you are.
Who you are as a man. I think who you
are as a justice to your journey. Many people don't
know you almost became a priest, and for a long
time you thought that's what you wanted to do.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
Well, I think I would have been a priest.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
And had the bishops at the time, or the leadership
and the church been as firm and has had the
resolve of the nuns during segregation and desegregation and civil
rights movement, et cetera. My nuns were immovable interesting as
(07:16):
far as their propagation of the faith, their belief in us.
They were the ones who planted the seed that in
God's eyes and you heard it at home too, were
all equal that God made it, We were made in
His image and likeness.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
And so were the nuns more willing to speak out
about civil rights.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
They were in their way, of course, they they had
a vow of chastity and poverty and obedience.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
So there's only so much.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
But they were adamant, and they were adamant outwardly to
the world and inwardly to us, so we couldn't use
race or some of the other things as excuses. And
it's hard to put it in context. But when I
was in the second and third grade, this is again
(08:11):
post Brown, and the Georgia legislature was in the midst
of drafting legislation that was reasserting segregation. And so it's people.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
And for our listeners, Brown and Brown versus Board of
Education right, which was a seminal, seminal Supreme Court decision
nineteen fifty four that overturned plusy versus Ferguson, Plus versus Ferguson,
I think is one of the most almost everyone thinks
is one of the most disgraceful decisions the courts has
ever decided. Where it it embraced the doctrine of separate
(08:45):
but equal, and Brown overturned it and ordered that schools
be desegregated. And you were you were a student when this,
I mean this impacted your life.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Well, I started first grade in nineteen fifty four, but
still schools was still second cregated.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
And when I went.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Do you remember, as a little kid, like being a
first grader, were you aware of Brown at the time?
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Well, no, Brown had almost I mean you're a kid. Yeah,
in school was meant you got like a new pair
of pants. And it was the first time I had
been to school. I went with my cousins, a little
school called Haven Homes School. But then when the house
burned down, I moved. And there's a big difference between
urban poverty and rural. And rural we were with relatives.
(09:30):
It was we were always together. You could run around barefooted,
and everybody knew.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
You grow up with English as your first language.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Well, there was a version. We people know it now
they celebrated. Back then, they used to make fun of us.
In Georgia, there's a dialect called Geechee, and in South
Carolina they call it Gullah. But it's just it's a
petois that for people who were not who did not
(10:01):
assimilate in the culture, or who were not a part
of the culture. We were isolated near the water, so
you kept that language. And that's the way until I
moved to Savannah. That was all I knew. They called us.
Back then, they said we were bad talking. Today they
celebrated it was a cultural thing. But when I moved
(10:24):
to Savannah, you were in urban poverty, which was quite different.
And I'm not going to go into all the details,
but then when you go when I went to live
with my grandparents, even though schools were segregated, they were
parochial schools, and that was different from the public schools
(10:45):
because there was quite a.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
Bit of order.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
You wore uniform, the bell rang at a certain time,
you said the pledge of allegiance in the school yard
before you marched in. You had religion, you hadochism. Class
was the first class. It was every unison, good morning, sister.
There was a lot of order, and that's what my
grandfather wanted.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Now, I think anyone understanding your life has to start
by understanding your grandfather. You were raised by your grandparents principally,
and your grandfather, myrs Anderson. I think you would say
was the most important man in your life. And tell
us about your grandfather.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Well, I mean he was not only the most important.
I think he's the greatest man I've known. And my
grandmother is the greatest woman. They were, And that's what
I mean when I say, look, you can look at
the negative side of things, but the blessings are enormous.
I mean to be Just think of the idea of
living with those two people and being raised by them,
(11:50):
and you can, after all these years say that they
are the two greatest people you've ever known.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Well, and he instilled a lot of discipline in you.
He was, I think a hard man and a strong man.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Where you're from Texas. When you live a hard life,
you have to be hard or you collapse. I mean
the day we are inundated with fragile people, you are
not permitted. I mean, you live in poverty and you
have to figure things out. And he had total of
nine months of education. My grandmother had six years, and
(12:26):
those weren't six full years, six nine months. On they
knew how to make do with life. They knew how
to make a way in the world without no education.
So things that we have today like education, freedom, etc.
(12:46):
They prize they dreamt about. They wanted us to have
a chance to have those things.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Well, and your grandparents prioritized education with you and reading
in particular that that became an outlet for you as
a boy.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Well, they were absolute about education. But the other thing
was work. He didn't believe in sports. That was foolishness.
We didn't have time for that. We delivered fuel oil
in the winter and we farmed in the summer.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
On August twenty fifth, my brand new book comes out,
Going Further, The Incomparable Clarence Thomas. It tells the story
of Justice Thomas, one of the true American hero is
an incredible story. It's based on nine and a half
hours of one on one exclusive interviews with Justice Thomas.
You could pre order it right now at the website
(13:36):
Goingfurther dot com. Goingfurther dot Com. Click on the link
now and pre order the book today. You know, one
story you told that stood out to me is that
when you were delivering fuel oil and there were times
when it was really cold, your grandfather wouldn't let you
wear gloves.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Now he'd gotten he lost a finger on his right hand,
and he never really got too much into the details
of it, but it must have involved the glove because
he would not I know, he got gott in a
chain or winch was something that ripped it off about
(14:14):
right about the first knuckle or below the first knuckle,
And so he would make us work with no gloves,
and for us cold would be forty degrees in Georgia.
You felt like you were freezing. But he believed it
(14:36):
was a way not to be harsh or anything like that.
It was he thought safety or safer not to have
gloves on.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Now you tell a story about being in Catholic High
school and one of the boys passing you a note
about Martin Luther King. Tell us that that story and
how it impacted you.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Well, it was only that was only one student out
of dozens, and there was one bad apple, and he
wasn't there very long. But it was my first year
in the seminary and there were two of us, two
blacks in the seminary. I was the only one in
my class. I was a sophomore. There was a young
(15:19):
man behind me in the ninth grade. And the note
was I mean, it was offensive, but it wasn't debilitating.
And you say, you consider the sender and it just
said on the outside something like I like Martin Luther King.
(15:40):
And then you opened it up and said dead on
the inside something like that.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
And it was you know, again.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
This is nineteen sixty four, sixty five, A lot going on,
and you know, I knew who it was. I know
who it is. I'm not going to say who it was.
But he left after a year or so and that
was that. But the rest of my classmates were.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
And have been just phenomenal. You know.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
They I was treated better there in the minor seminary,
because remember where at the beginning of desegregation. This is
nineteen sixty four. The next two years after my first year,
I'd be the only black in that school. And I
was treated very well. I was a really good student.
(16:29):
I was treated fairly. That The great thing about it
was if you got a ninety five in physics, you
got a ninety five in physics. Latin was a nemesis
of most kids. I did very, very well at Saint
John vi Ani Minor Seminaries, and I have zero complaints.
It was again one of the benefits that I received
(16:52):
in Savannah. I was treated and I'd like to say
this for obvious reasons. I was treated better there, and
I was at Yale.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
Well, and and uh your time at Yale. In fact,
you draw an analogy between two kinds of snakes, which
I think is revealing well.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
I think most people who live in rural areas know
the difference. My grandfather always used this analogy. And if
you the difference between a rattlesnake and a marcasin which
we had both and they were pretty big in Georgia
and South Georgia. A rattlesnake always warned you, and if
you gave it time, it'll get out of your way
(17:33):
and leave you.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
You leave me alone, I'll leave you alone.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
A Marcusin was basically wouldn't warn you, and its attitude was, look,
I was here first, and you're going to have a
bad day, and I'm not moving. But his point was
about the warning that you had some people in Georgia
who didn't like blacks, and they were bigots, and they
were openly so.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
And what you said is the Southern the Southern racist
were they were They made noise and they were visible.
But when you went to the North and the Northeast,
they were like moccasins. They were hidden until they'd strike.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
And and the attitude that was sort of one of
the things that surprised me. We were told basically that
the North was the holy Grail. So it was shocking
to see in New England the kind of ethnic divisions,
the bigotry toward minorities, et cetera.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
Now, what is it that attracted you to being a priest,
because that's that's what you thought you wanted to spend
your life doing.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Well I'm Catholic. I was an altar boy. I loved
being an altar boy. I loved We used to get
these magazines, the marin Old Priests and uh serving you know,
kids who were had disease, or were poor, or were
having difficulties, and you get you began you begin to
(19:00):
feel that that would be a good way to spend
your life. And then it becomes an issue when you
enter the minor seminary. It's really a time of discernment
and to see whether you have the capabilities. And I
like the idea of being called to serve to do that.
You know, when you have a vocation, you're asking yourself,
(19:24):
what is God calling me to do? And that became
actually again, but for the weakness of the bishops, I
think I'd be a priest today, or not specific bishops,
but the church itself seemed to be vacillating on the
issue of race. And to me, the big, the major
(19:48):
wrong in the country, the major contradiction in this country
was the race issue that you treat you can place
in the important of equality at the center of your
founding document, right, and then you have this issue of
slavery and its offshoots.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Well, and the church was slow to recognize that. One
point that I make many times is you look at
doctor King's letter from Birmingham jail, and people forget to
whom it is addressed. It's addressed to the clergy of America.
He's writing to the leaders of the church saying, wake
(20:33):
up and speak up. And my favorite portion of that letter,
there's a group of senators, bipartisan senators who regularly read
that letter on the floor of the Senate. It's really
powerful to read the words out loud. And there's a
portion in it where he says the church should be
a thermostat and not a thermometer, that it should be
(20:55):
changing society and not just reacting to what's around. That's
ultimately what led you to leave, leave the seminary and
say that that you were not going to go down
the path of a b.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
I think it was I think it was an overreaction.
I think I was nineteen years.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Old and when doctor King was assassinated, that was.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
That was a moment.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
That was I was in my first year in college
in the seminary where I would love to I love
the Benedictines. I was there and magnic exception Seminary in Missouri.
I loved being there, the people, it was wonderful. But
it was it was not there that things were difficult.
(21:35):
It was the world around me. It was the church generally.
I thought that as a sort of a moral beacon,
we should talk about the court, that we should have
taken a leadership role in the church.
Speaker 4 (21:52):
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Speaker 1 (22:53):
Now, you went from the Seminary to holy Cross and
then Yale Law School. A lot of people people listening,
I mean, they know you were one of the greatest
conservative leaders to have ever lived, but as a young man,
you were not in any way, shape or form a conservative.
To tell folks what your worldview was as a nineteen
(23:17):
twenty twenty one.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Year old, well, I think when you're nineteen and you're angry,
you're confused. For the most part, I came from a
very traditional background. In fact, as I went through that period,
when I quit the seminary and returned home, my grandfather
invited me to leave his house immediately, and so I've
basically been on my own since then. And of course,
(23:40):
as you're.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
Nineteen, and that was a hard moment, Oh, that was.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
It was more than hard, and hard as an understate
the And it was in that vein or in that
posture that I wound up going to New England in
sort of a negative posture.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
And I think we have we react to our.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Circumstances in certain ways, and I was reacting to the
church's have sort of not doing what it should be doing.
I react, overreacted. I reacted as a nineteen year olds emotionally.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
And you were angry at the time, you were angry
at God. You stopped going to mass.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
I well, I left the church completely, and I think
if I had it to do over, I wouldn't. I
would not have left the church. And I think it's
a matter. And this is the point my grandfather was
making at the time. He said, you're throwing the baby
out with the bath water. That it is people not
(24:46):
living up to what is right that's the problem, not
the underlying principles. So the church to believe the tenants
of the church are not wrong. It's that the people
are failing in living up to that. But at any rate,
when you're young, you don't make those fine distinctions. So
(25:06):
I think an easy way to deal with that, or
a quick way or to sort of respond when you're
that age is to find these sort of radical movements
you participate in. You protest, sort of let off steam,
and you're angry and you feel empowered by that anger.
(25:30):
But then as time goes on, you take a step
back and you start thinking about what you're doing probably.
You know, my grandfather asked me a question, and I've
said this before. I would come return home and he
would be upset with me, and he would say, after
all his sacrifices, this is what I've become. And he
(25:52):
would challenge me because I'd say, the country's racist and
we need to destroy it and all that thing. And
he said, and when you destroy, where you're going to go?
That was always the unanswerable question, where what country is
better than this country with all its problems, to which
I had no answer. So I think it's that planted
(26:17):
the seed of doubt the from this and as I
grew older and more mature and thought about things. In fact,
about the time I was at Yale and had participated
in enough enough sort of demonstrations.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Well, and you you took part in a protest that
that became a riot in Harvard Square.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Youre Alma mine, Yeah, just I could save your trouble,
And that was that was sort of I think that
was the road to Damascus moment. That's the moment where
you look into the the abyss and it looked back.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Well, you realize that it could have gone much worse
for you. You could have been thrown in jail. You
could have been expelled from school.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Well, I couldn't answer why I was doing it. You know, again,
it goes back when you asked a hard question, why
why didn't I just do what I just did, to
spend all night doing something I don't quite understand.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
But that return. It was.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
April sixteen, nineteen seventy. So I returned the Holy Cross
from Cambridge and passed, walked in front of the chapel
because I was exhausted but couldn't sleep, walked in front
of the chapel. And again, I'm not attending or anything,
but I am still deeply Catholic, and I face it
(27:50):
and to bless His sacrament. And I asked God to
take hate out of my heart. And I said, if
you take hate out of my heart, I will never
hate again. And that was the moment when you begin
to for me, when I began to move in a
more positive direction, when you begin to offload, it's like
it was like lancing a boil, and it's long.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
It was long. You're radic.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
There was not a straight line, but it was away
from the thing that it consumed me.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Well, and even when you were a left wing radical,
you could see glimmers of the man that Clarence Thomas
would become. That that, in many ways I think was
the wisdom your grandfather and your grandmother had imparted to you.
But you could see the individualist you have never liked
(28:42):
to conform.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
That well, I don't like being told what to do. Yeah,
that's I just think when you.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
The nuns made it clear that when God created us,
it was mind, soul, and body, and you don't just
liberate the and that you were responsible. You committed us in.
It wasn't because the devil didn't make you do it.
You did it. You gave in, You made the decision,
(29:13):
and you were responsible, and you didn't do your homework.
You were responsible. Excuses didn't count. And my grandfather was
that way. You were accountable. And that's similarly when you
made it was my life and I wasn't. I'm not
(29:33):
talking about being a libertine or anything like that. It's
more libertarian right that you believe in liberty, and that
means you have to take responsibility for it. And I
really didn't like people saying you have to do this,
you have to do that. We had to saying that
you are only two things I have to do, stay
black and die, And that was a retort to people
(29:55):
who had these sort of requirements for us, these mandates
for us because of our skin color and thing that's
really kind of interesting.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
It wasn't until later on.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
That people began to say that when I came to
this town, one of the greatest difficulties, if you if
you think about it, was that there were those who
thought that I should think a certain way. And the
difficulty has been that they said that, oh, you're confused. Well,
I'm not confused. You're confused. You confuse me with someone
(30:30):
who's been an indentured servitude or something. But at any rate,
they think that here's the way you're supposed to think. Again,
here's your skin color. There's this kind of deterministic view
that you're supposed to think this because we say so.
And I of course declined that invitation. And so now
(30:53):
that means it's something that I'm a walking contradiction because
I've deviated from their perception of what I should think.
Explain to me how that is different. Here's what I've
asked people. I said, when I was a kid, the
Savannah Public Library was segregated. I said, do you think
(31:13):
it was right that the Savannah Public Library was segregated?
Speaker 3 (31:17):
Oh? No, you should have been able to go in.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
I said, what if they allowed me in but said
I couldn't go to certain floors? That would be wrong.
I said, what about what if they said you couldn't
go to certain stacks? Well, that would be wrong. What
if they had certain books marked that were off limits
to me? That would be wrong. Then my question is,
why is it then that you have a problem with
(31:42):
me embracing certain ideas in certain books? What's the difference?
Of course, that's unanswerable. In fact, if I would prefer
not to go into building to not being able to
embrace the ideas that I find that I agree with
or that are important.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
Well, by any measure, one of your greatest legacies in
the Court, and there are many, but has been on race.
And you have been a clarion voice in your entire
tenure on the Court for the principle that the Constitution
does not allow racial distinctions, does not allow racial discrimination.
(32:20):
The Constitution is color blind and protects everyone. You know,
it's interesting as you tell the story or the analogy
of the library and then the stacks and the books
that you might not be allowed to read one story
you have told as a young man. I think in
law school somebody gave you a copy of a book
by Thomas Soul and you started to read it and
(32:43):
throw it in the trash and said, if I remember right,
that no black man can think this way.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
Yeah, as Black Education, Myths and Tragedies. I think that
one of his early books, and he laughs about it.
Then of course he sent me a copy just to
make sure I add it in. In the after law school,
I was working in jeff City. It's one of those
hops's choices that's I wound up. Were the only job
(33:10):
offer a hand. But it's the best job I've ever had.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
But all the fancy law firms wouldn't give you it. All.
You came out of Gale Law School, did really well
in law school.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
And I always tell them now when I see them, Uh,
they're the reason I'm on the court, because but for them,
i'd be a tax lawyer someplace. And they were they
woke now, but they were fast asleep when I got
out of school. So anyways, God works in mysterious ways.
I wind up in jeff City and.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
I working for Jack Dan for the Attorney general in Missouri.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
Absolutely wonderful man.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
And your classmates were asking, what are you doing going
to work for a Republican. Yeah, he was the only
one who would give you a job.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
He was the only one who gave me a job.
I mean I had trouble with that. I mean I
was dying. Remember I just voted for a governor. Yeah,
you know, and I thought he was too concerned. So
you can see ideologically where I was. But I go
to work for him, best job ever ever had.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
Well, and you said, when you came in, he said, look,
I don't want to work on matters of race. I
don't want to be treated differently than anyone else, said,
And you joked that he took you very seriously. Justice
Clarence Thomas's epic journey from poverty in Georgia through faith, anger,
(34:27):
and an extraordinary intellectual transformation would ultimately take him to
the highest court in the land. In part two of
the special edition of Verdict, Justice Thomas takes us inside
the Supreme Court and shares how he approaches the constitution, precedent,
individual liberty, and the responsibility that comes with a lifetime
(34:49):
appointment to the Court. That conversation continues in Part two
of Verdict with Ted Cruz
Host
Ben Ferguson
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