My Grandfather's Son

HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

Chapter One

Sun to Sun

I was nine years old when I met my father. His name was M. C. Thomas, and my birth certificate describes him as a "laborer." My mother divorced him in 1950 and he moved north to Philadelphia, leaving his family behind in Pinpoint, the tiny Georgia community where I was born. I saw him only twice when I was young. The first time was when my mother called her parents, with whom my brother Myers and I then lived, and told them that someone at her place wanted to see us. They called a cab and sent us to her housing-project apartment, where my father was waiting. "I am your daddy," he told us in a firm, shameless voice that carried no hint of remorse for his inexplicable absence from our lives. He said nothing about loving or missing us, and we didn't say much in return—it was as though we were meeting a total stranger—but he treated us politely enough, and even promised to send us a pair of Elgin watches with flexible bands, which were popular at the time. Though we watched the mail every day, the watches never came, and when a year or so had gone by, my grandparents bought them for us instead. My father had broken the only promise he ever made to us. After that we heard nothing more from him, not even a Christmas or birthday card. For years my brother and I would ask ourselves how a man could show no interest in his own children. I still wonder.

I saw him for the second time after I graduated from high school. He had come to see his own father in Montgomery, not far from Pinpoint, and I went there to visit him. I felt I owed it to him—he was, after all, my father, and he had let my grandparents raise me without interference—but Myers would have nothing to do with "C," as we called him, saying that the only father we had was our grandfather. That may sound harsh, but it was nothing more than the truth, for me as much as my brother. In every way that counts, I am my grandfather's son. I even called him Daddy because that was what my mother called him. (His friends called him Mike.) He was dark, strong, proud, and determined to mold me in his image. For a time I rejected what he taught me, but even then I still yearned for his approval. He was the one hero in my life. What I am is what he made me.

I am descended from the West African slaves who lived on the barrier islands and in the low country of Georgia, South Carolina, and coastal northern Florida. In Georgia my people were called Geechees; in South Carolina, Gullahs. They were isolated from the rest of the population, black and white alike, and so maintained their distinctive dialect and culture well into the twentieth century. What little remains of Geechee life is now celebrated by scholars of black folklore, but when I was a boy, "Geechee" was a derogatory term for Georgians who had profoundly Negroid features and spoke with a foreign-sounding accent similar to the dialects heard on certain Caribbean islands.

Much of my family tree is lost to me, its secrets having gone to the grave with my grandparents, but I know that Daddy's people worked on a three-thousand-acre rice plantation in Liberty County, just south of Savannah, and after their manumission they stayed nearby. The maternal side of my mother's family also came from Liberty County, and probably worked on the same plantation, most of which has remained intact. Not long ago I saw it for the first time—during my youth blacks never went there unless they had a good reason—and found that the old barn in which my great-great-grandparents surely labored a century and a half ago is now a bed-and-breakfast inn whose Web site calls it "a perfect honeymoon hideaway." You'd never guess that slaves once worked there.

My mother, Leola, whom I called Pigeon, her family nickname, was born out of wedlock in 1929 or 1930.Her mother died in childbirth, and she saw little of Daddy as a child. At first she was raised by her maternal grandmother, who died when she was eight or nine years old. Then she went to live in Pinpoint with Annie Green, her mother's sister. C and his family moved near there to work at Bethesda Home for Boys, which is next to Pinpoint; that was where he met Pigeon, all of whose children he sired. My sister, Emma Mae, was born in 1946, with Myers Lee following three years later. I was born between them in Sister Annie's house on June 23, 1948. I was delivered by Lula Kemp, a midwife who came from the nearby community of Sandfly. It was one of those sweltering Georgia nights when the air is so wet that you can barely draw breath. To this day my mother swears I was too stubborn to cry.

Pinpoint is a heavily wooded twenty-five-acre peninsula on Shipyard Creek, a tidal salt creek ten miles southeast of Savannah. A shady, quiet enclave full of pines, palms, live oaks, and low-hanging Spanish moss, it feels cut off from the rest of the world, and it was even more isolated in the fifties than it is today. Then as now, Pinpoint was too small to be properly called a town. No more than a hundred people lived there, most of whom were related to me in one way or another. Their lives were a daily struggle for the barest of essentials: food, clothing, and shelter. Doctors were few and far between, so when you got sick, you stayed that way, and often you died of it. The house in which I was born was a shanty with no bathroom and no electricity except for . . .

Provocative, inspiring, and unflinchingly honest, My Grandfather's Son is the story of one of America's most remarkable and controversial leaders, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, told in his own words. Thomas speaks out, revealing the pieces of his life he holds dear, detailing the suffering and injustices he has overcome, including the acrimonious and polarizing Senate hearing involving a former aide, Anita Hill, and the depression and despair it created in his own life and the lives of those closest to him. In this candid and deeply moving memoir, a quintessential American tale of hardship and grit, Clarence Thomas recounts his astonishing journey for the first time.

Provocative, inspiring, and unflinchingly honest, My Grandfather's Son is the story of one of America's most remarkable and controversial leaders, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, told in his own words. Thomas speaks out, revealing the pieces of his life he holds dear, detailing the suffering and injustices he has overcome, including the acrimonious and polarizing Senate hearing involving a former aide, Anita Hill, and the depression and despair it created in his own life and the lives of those closest to him. In this candid and deeply moving memoir, a quintessential American tale of hardship and grit, Clarence Thomas recounts his astonishing journey for the first time.

“Justice Thomas describes his intellectual journey, and his struggle to keep body and soul together on meager government pay, in some of the book’s most absorbing and self-critical chapters.” — William Grimes, The New York Times

“Thanks to this book, the public can get to know the man himself.” — Thomas Sowell, National Review

“Gripping. . . . Thomas offers an education in practical wisdom and moral courage. Particularly instructive, and moving, is the portrait of his grandfather. . . . A delightful book—you really can’t put it down—but it’s also a source of moral education for young Americans.” — William Kristol, The Weekly Standard

“A tale of pride, dertermination and independence. . . . A great American story, written by an extraordinary man.” — Rich Lowry, National Review

“Candid. . . . A fascinating glimpse into a tortured, complex, and often perplexing personality.” — The Washington Post Book World

“An original addition to those great black autobiographies of the past. . . . A lesson on how to live in freedom—a lesson that begins with a description of poverty on a par with Richard Wright’s portrait of poverty in Black Boy. . . . Thomas is now an archetype that will inspire others. I can think of no greater achievement.” — Shelby Steele, National Review (cover story)

“Very rewarding reading. . . . While there is anger in the book—justifiable anger, one might argue—there is also tenderness, vulnerability, brutal honesty and overflowing gratitude. . . . There is also unswerving intellectual integrity.” — Mona Charen

“As his memoir shows, Justice Thomas’s views were forged in the crucible of a truly authentic American story.” — John Yoo, The Wall Street Journal

“The book of the year for Americans tired of politics as usual.” — The Denver Post

“Thomas speaks candidly about the mistakes he made that fueled his determination to overcome all odds to be appointed to the nation’s highest court.” — The Oklahoman

“A tale so profoundly moving, and so profoundly true to this nation’s ideals, that every American father ought to read the first two chapters—and then read them aloud to his children.” — The Dallas Morning News

“Thomas is refreshingly candid about the depths of his suffering, and one comes away with a deep sadness about our broken politics and the ferocious disincentives for anyone to seek high government appointment.” — Newsday

“Absorbing.” — The Economist

“The Georgia native writes a telling memoir about his life prior to joining the U.S. Supreme Court. . . . My Grandfather’s Son lays bare the darkest, most painful moments of his life, with candor almost unheard of in public figures, let alone Supreme Court justices.” — The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“A fascinating and irresistible read.” — The New York Sun

“A transcendent work. . . . My Grandfather’s Son is a coming of age in the fullest sense. . . . A meditation of time and perspective and the shifts in outlook both can bring. . . . A memoir of raw honesty.” — The Oregonian

“Engrossing.” — Jack & Suzy Welch, Business Week

Clarence Thomas is Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Born in Pinpoint, Georgia, he is a graduate of the College of the Holy Cross and Yale Law School. He lives with his wife and great nephew in northern Virginia.