Title: My Grandfather's Son
Author: Clarence Thomas
Publisher: Harper Collins, 2007
Reviewed by: Dr. Alfred Sangster

This is the story of how a poor black boy, born into poverty, discrimination and harsh 'Jim Crow' conditions in the heartlands of Georgia, overcame these handicaps to become a United States (U.S.) Supreme Court Judge.

It is the inspiring, provocative and deeply personal story of one of America's most remarkable and controversial leaders. Clarence Thomas was subjected in 1991 to a harrowing confirmation experience in the Senate following his nomination by President George H. W. Bush to the position of judge of the Supreme Court of the United Sates of America.

His mother, Leola, nicknamed 'Pigeon', divorced his father and she was faced with rearing her three small children - Clarence, Myers and sister Emma Mae - on a maid's wages of US$10 per week. Eventually, his mother sent the two boys off to her grandfather, Mike Thomas (Daddy) who, along with their grandmother Christine (Aunt Tina), brought them up.

Daddy was a strict disciplinarian and had no intention of allowing the boys to stray, so that they were nailed to the grindstone of work and productive activity and taught economic self-reliance.

A realist

Daddy was also a realist and recognised 'the hand that had been dealt him' . The white folks had the power and authority and nothing could change that. He had a saying: "The man ain't goin' let you do nothing. Why you even trying?" There is implicit in that statement, the reference to the white establishment and power structure which would allow blacks to go so far. His life and the book is about his challenge to 'The Man'.

Though most of the community were Baptists, Daddy had changed to the Roman Catholic Church. This connection led to some specific directions in early life. Becoming a boy while in school, he later moved to a seminary with the aim of becoming a priest. When he abandoned this idea, Daddy replied that he had let him down and threw him out of the house. He had to pick up the pieces again and, regretfully, never really connected with Daddy in later years, a deep regret in his life.

Challenging years

The growing-up years were challenging. For a time he took on the radical and militant black student protest beliefs and actions, and even got involved in a riot at a northern university campus which nearly got him expelled. This was the first of several warnings in his life.

An application to Yale Law School was successful, though he was later unhappy that he had been accepted on a preference selection basis and not necessarily on the merit of his grades at the seminary.

On completion of law school he applied unsuccessfully far and wide and was eventually contacted by John (Jack) Danforth, the young (white) Attorney General (AG) for the state of Missouri. At the interview, the AG said to him: "Clarence, there is plenty of room at the top." Clarence remembered this later as he did many of the helpful sayings that other persons gave him.

He passed his bar exams and was hired in the AG's office. John Danforth, who was later elected to the Senate, maintained the contact, friendship and support of Clarence over the years. This reads like a scarlet thread through the book. John's support was particularly strong during the confirmation proceedings. In particular, his Christian faith was a special feature of his relationship with Clarence.

A move to the chemical giant, Monsanto, after his stint with the AG's office in Missouri was later seen as an unfortunate sidetrack. All the while Clarence was wrestling with social issues and he met up with a few souls of like minds: Thomas Sewell, Walter Williams and Jay Parker were independent- minded thinkers who avoided the herd instinct of many blacks at the time. Dissatisfied with the Democrats' position on many issues he decided to register as a Republican.

An early marriage that yielded one son was shaky and he walked out on the family. Reflecting in later life on the two occasions that he had gone back on his word - to Daddy and the priesthood and Kathy and his marriage - he vowed not to let this happen again.

A fellow employee in the office of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) warned him about his drinking: "Loose lips sink ships." He was loosing control of his life and he was mired deep in debt. This was a final wake-up call and he stopped drinking. Period. He also got married again and returned to his spiritual roots. Prayer and Bible reading became important parts of his life.

Hostile media environment

An opportunity opened in Washington again, with John Danforth now the junior senator from Missouri. This was followed by a position with the Department of Education, followed by a call from the office of President Ronald Regan to take over the chair of the EEOC. His eight years at EEOC were difficult, in a hostile media environment. But he was able to transform, and also move, a rundown, ill-housed and demoralised agency to a disciplined and efficient professional organisation. Even the critical Washington Post commented favourably on the agency's performance. It was here also that the troubles with Anita Hill began.

The next step was President Bush's nomination of Clarence to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Colombia Circuit. The jobs in education and the EEOC had both required Senate ratification, so Clarence was getting acquainted with the confirmation process. The confirmation for the Court of Appeals position went reasonably well, though hints were made that if the nomination were for the Supreme Court, the situation would be very different.

This is the climax of the book and gives very significant insights into the political process. A friend of Thomas warned him about the process, that he had got this far on merit, but what was to come was about politics.

He had served less than two years on the Court of Appeals bench when President Bush announced his nomination for the vacant position on the Supreme Court, formally held by Thurgood Marshall.

Years later, after he was appointed to the Supreme Court, Clarence asked a friend why he had been seen by the president as the best qualified nominee at the time. The response was: "Someone who was competent ... had been tested in political battle ... could be counted on not to cave in under the pressure of a confirmation battle or to change his views after being appointed to the court." From the start he was a Republican, and to some largely in the black community that meant he was to be rejected out of hand.

Clarence Thomas was subjected to a vicious personal attack on his integrity, based on the coalition attacks: led by a panel of Democratic senators and culminating in the testimony of Anita Hill, a woman whom Thomas had befriended and helped in a variety of ways, who turned on him in what he describes as a treacherous, unprincipled and deceitful manner.

In a statement in the final chapter: 'Going to Meet the Man', Thomas attacked the credibility of the committee and said: "This is a circus. It is a national disgrace. And from my standpoint as a black American, as far as I am concerned, it is high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who, in any way, deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas and it is a message that unless you kowtow to an old order this is what will happen to you.

"You will be lynched, destroyed, caricatured by a committee of the U.S. Senate, rather than hung from a tree."

This statement, made in prime time TV, changed the course of the enquiry and public opinion shifted dramatically in Thomas' favour.

The story occupied the pages of the U.S. press for weeks and, eventually, he was voted to the court by the full Senate by the narrowest of margins: 52 to 48. The senators voted across party lines.