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