Portrait of a Hero

Justice Clarence Thomas

US Supreme Court

Justice Thomas' nomination to the United States Supreme Court was opposed by the NAACP, Urban League and the National Organization for Women.  Thomas rarely gives interviews to the media because he says, "the media often has its own script".

Clarence Thomas was born in Pin Point, Georgia, a small, impoverished black community. His father left his family when he was two years old. He was raised by his maternal grandfather who ran a fuel oil business and sold ice. When he was ten years old, Thomas was taken to work every day on the family farm. He complained to his grandfather, "slavery is over". His grandfather replied, "Not in my house". His grandfather's philosophy was summed up thus: Never let the sun catch you in bed.

When Dr. Martin Luther King was shot, Thomas was overheard responding, "Good, I hope the son-of-a-bitch died."

Justice Thomas has always been opposed to affirmative action. Essentially affirmative action is a pay-back for the sins of non-black grandfathers. Even for those who's lineage had nothing to do with slavery or the oppression of blacks. Linking minorities with the Democratic Party provides the Party with a tool - political indentured servitude of minorities by making them dependent on handouts.

Thomas' career on the Supreme Court has seen him take a strict constructionalist approach to the US Constitution, in an attempt to uphold its original meaning and statutes. He looks to the text's exact phrasing as the test to the surest guide to its meaning.