Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words (2020) - full transcript

MICHAEL: James,

are we keeping the glasses on or off?

CAMERAMAN: The only issue

is that because they're bifocals

there's a line going

through his eyes.

MICHAEL: Do you need them on,

Justice Thomas?

No.

I wear them, that's my normal...

I normally have glasses on.

Not on the cover of your book.

CLARENCE: Well, except for the

cover of my book I normally wear...

[laughs]

MICHAEL: Justice Thomas,

how did you decide you wanted

to become a lawyer?

You look around society and you see,

its laws.

Laws affect everybody.

If you're poor,

and you look at people

like my grandfather,

I think of when he

came home one day,

and he was very upset,

and he was taking a drink.

He never took a drink

in the middle of the day.

CLARENCE: Well what had happened was,

he was driving the oil truck,

a police officer stops him

for having too many clothes on,

and that's ridiculous.

He has no way

of challenging that.

So the law, he ran into the law

and he always

was afraid of that.

You couldn't walk

across certain parks;

you couldn't go

to certain schools;

people's property being taken;

people taking advantage of him

because they could say

"The law did this" or "Did that."

So I decided I was

going to go to law school.

Senator BIDEN: Judge Thomas,

do you solemnly swear to tell the truth,

the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,

so help you God?

Judge THOMAS: I do.

Senator BIDEN: Please be seated.

Let me look a little bit

from your life and history,

you are somewhat an enigma.

You have gone through

many changes in your life.

Which brings us to the question:

what is the real

Clarence Thomas like?

Judge THOMAS: The person

you see is Clarence Thomas.

I don't know that I would

call myself an enigma.

I am just simply different from

what people painted me to be.

My earliest memories are

those of Pin Point, Georgia,

a life far removed in space

and time from this room,

this day and this moment.

♪ Moon river ♪

♪ Wider than a mile ♪

♪ I'm crossing you in style ♪

♪ Someday ♪

♪ Oh ♪

CLARENCE: We were isolated.

It was a community.

You could see

the river from there.

You hear of the song Moon River,

Johnny Mercer's from Savannah.

♪ Wherever you're goin', ♪

♪ I'm goin' ♪

CLARENCE: 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.

It was just a distinctive culture,

it was West African.

It had a mixture of English,

and other words,

with kind of a diction

that was somewhat

difficult to understand.

(Geechee music)

(♪)

I know when I first went

down to Pin Point I said

"Clarence, I can't understand

a word that they just said"

because they talk in a dialect.

So I just try to

listen and smile.

CLARENCE: I was born at home,

right on Shipyard Creek in 1948.

My mother always I was too stubborn to cry,

and I guess

that was a sort of indication of

the kind of person I would be.

A middle child.

My mother had all of us,

we think, before she was 20.

And then she and my father

separated when I was a toddler.

So I would have no

early memories of him.

I have memories of other family members,

but he wasn't there.

He wasn't among

the family members.

[♪]

CLARENCE: Many of

the men raked oysters

during the winter,

and caught crabs,

and fish in the

spring and summer.

Their boats,

which were called bateaus,

could be heard far

away in the marshes.

They would slowly

emerge from the labyrinths

of surrounding creeks

and pull up to the dock

where the day's

haul was unloaded.

The women picked crab; people

like my mother, and my relatives

did that at the crab factory.

And they also shucked

oysters... All of which is hard work.

Well, when they were gone,

we were on our own.

We were off on our adventures.

[♪]

We would catch

minnows in the creek.

We would walk along

the water's edge,

throwing oyster shells.

Most people didn't

have store-bought toys.

So, you had lots of old

tires that had gone bad.

If you go back to the movie,

To Kill a Mockingbird...

JEM FINCH: You Ready?

SCOUT FINCH: Uh-huh, let her go.

CLARENCE: Scout, the young girl,

when she is pushed into Boo Radley's yard,

she's in a tire.

I have no idea how kids

today can have any idea

what they were doing

with her inside a tire.

We always did that.

I remember years later reading Huck Finn,

and Tom Sawyer,

and wondering what

the fuss was about.

We had done a

lot of those things.

One day I came home someone

said there had been a fire.

And we get there,

and this little shack that we had

all been living in was

just ashes and twisted tin.

Everything that you ever

knew in life is just there,

I mean it's smoldering.

[♪]

CLARENCE: When I was

a boy Savannah was hell.

My mother lived in one

room in an old tenement

with an outdoor bathroom.

That is the worst

place I've ever lived.

And so,

you had the contrast between rural poverty,

which is what we had in Pin Point,

which was very livable.

And then you had urban squalor,

and that was horrible.

Whenever you flushed the toilet,

or someone else flushed,

it didn't actually go

in the sewer system.

It went in somebody else's yard.

My all encompassing

word is gross,

I mean it was putrid.

It was the smell of raw sewage.

There were these boards,

people would make these sort of

makeshift paths to

get across the just,

the gross wetness

in the back yard.

Savannah is still

a segregated city.

[♪]

One of the major parks downtown

is a rectangle, Forsyth Park.

You were never allowed to

walk to the interior of that park.

That's how I figured out

the word "circumnavigate."

You would walk around.

You could not go

across the park.

[♪]

I was supposed to go to

school in the afternoons

and my mother wasn't

there to make me go,

because she had to go to work,

so I wandered

the streets by myself.

I was six.

[♪]

You were hungry,

and didn't know when you'd eat, and cold,

and didn't know when

you'd be warm again.

My mother had difficulty

with two little boys

and working as a maid.

So she asked my

grandparents for help.

And my grandmother

suggested that she let...

Her raise these two boys.

And one day,

one Saturday morning we w..., we woke up,

and my mother said "Put all

your things in the grocery bag."

And remember the paper

grocery bags in those days,

and my brother took one,

and neither one was full.

But we, all of our items,

just imagine everything you have

in less than a paper bag.

So,

we took our grocery bag each,

and walked the couple

of blocks from Henry Lane,

to East Thirty-Second Street.

[♪]

That was the longest,

and most significant journey

I ever made,

because it changed my entire life.

[♪]

My grandfather was this myth.

He was very stern.

And he sat us there

at the kitchen table,

and he said "Boys,

the damn vacation is over."

And he said from then

on it was going to be

"Rules and regulations"

and "Manners and behavior."

Oh my goodness, and he meant it,

and he just explained what

the rules were: my

grandmother was always right,

that he was in charge.

He made it very clear that it

was by grace that we were there

- his grace.

And the door in 1955 when

we went to live with him

was swinging open, inward,

and if we didn't behave ourselves

there'd be a day when

it would swing outward

and we'd be asked to leave.

They lived in this new house,

and it was beautiful.

For us,

it could have been a palace.

We had never been in

a house with a bathtub,

beautiful white

porcelain toilet.

My brother and I,

one of our activities was to flush

that toilet every time

we had a chance.

I mean we would walk

by and flush the toilet.

And my grandfather said,

he would chastise us and said you,

as he would say "You're

runnin' up my damn water bill."

Beautiful, as we used to say back then,

modern kitchen

with a refrigerator,

etc. And lots of food.

And my grandmother would

just lavish you with those things.

My grandmother was

as sweet as she could be

she would always be saintly.

By the time we went to

live with my grandfather

he was delivering fuel oil.

The rule was: we got

out of school at 2:30;

you had to be home,

dressed, and ready to be

on the oil truck by 3:00.

[♪]

When you rode with him,

he was the professor.

You could not

initiate a conversation,

so you were constantly

getting this one-way input.

He thought that we were destined

to have to work for everything

because of what happened

in the Garden of Eden,

and because of our fallen

nature; we would have to earn

everything by the

sweat of our brow

- that was biblical.

And we would have to work

from sun to sun... biblical.

The philosophy of life that he

had came from biblical sources.

On Christmas Day 1957,

we went to the place where

he had grown up,

which we called the farm.

[♪]

The 60 acres had been passed

down undivided from generation to

generation as was customary

with land owned by Southern blacks.

[♪]

And every summer

after that we farmed.

He thought that we needed to

be kept busy during the summer.

And he didn't want us around

our no good friends in the city,

and "That riff raff."

He said idle hands were

the devil's workshop.

Your time is dominated by labor

and there's a lot of it,

from sun to sun.

He started plowing with

Cousin Jack's horse, Lizzie,

which was a very

spirited animal,

and we would go

running behind them.

We cut down trees,

and he would always do it manually,

you didn't use a chainsaw,

you used a cross-cut saw.

It seems like everything

was made to be doubly hard.

You're a little kid you

say you can't do it.

And he would just say over and

"Old man can't is dead,

I helped bury him".

CLARENCE: You're

building a fence line.

You had to learn how

to stretch barbed wire.

If you did something stupid he

would say to you "You know what?

If I could cultivate your head

down to the size of your brain,

a peanut hull would

make you a sun hat."

Now that's not

exactly a compliment.

CLARENCE: You had

to learn how to gut fish.

You don't want to be there

and up to your eyebrow in scales

and fish guts, and the smell.

And then the accompaniments: the flies,

the gnats,

the mosquitos etc.

And you'd say would

you want to give up.

And he said,

"You can give out but you can't give up."

My grandmother would say

like "You should give them

a compliment or do this."

And he said "No,

that's their job to do it right."

The family farm and

our unheated oil truck

became my most

important classrooms,

the schools in which my

grandfather passed on the wisdom

he had acquired as an

ill-educated modestly successful

black man in the deep south.

My grandfather understood that

education was the key because

he didn't have it,

and that's what held him back.

And he said that he went

to third grade but school

was three months out of the

year because you had to work.

MICHAEL: Could

he read the Bible?

He could he could make

out certain words in the Bible.

When he got a portion of it,

like most of the,

of the people I knew,

most were uneducated,

and most were

functionally illiterate,

and many were

totally illiterate.

They would get a part of the

Bible that they would memorize

or that they knew the story

and that would become apart

of their lexicon.

CLARENCE: He had gone

his own way and converted

to Roman Catholicism in 1949.

It followed that Catholic

schools had to be

better than public schools so

he sent my brother and me to one.

Remember now I

am seven years old.

My brother is six and he

says to us "You are going to go

to school every day,

and if you are sick,

you are still going,

and if you die, you will go.

I will take your body for

three days and make sure

you're not faking",

and he meant it.

The thing about it is,

it's one thing if somebody says it,

and you think

they're exaggerating.

He wasn't that kind of guy.

[♪]

CLARENCE: The Catholic

schools were very orderly.

My brother used to say

"When you walked in there

you could hear a gnat

tiptoeing across cotton."

[♪]

It was segregated.

The nuns didn't much

appreciate the fact that blacks

were treated that way.

They were mostly Irish nuns,

and they were outspoken too.

Oh God, I love it.

They were on our

side from day one.

[♪]

You knew they loved you.

And when somebody,

when you think somebody loves you

and deeply cares about your interests,

somehow,

they can get you

to do hard things.

Sister Mary Virgilius,

my eighth-grade teacher,

when she saw my entrance

exam scores to high school,

she looks me in the eye in 1962

and says "You lazy thing you."

In other words,

I was underachieving.

It was actually accurate,

and I've never forgotten it.

Most dependable altar boys,

I had also been thinking about

the possibility of

becoming a priest.

A few months shy of my

16th birthday I decided

I wanted to enter

St. John Vianney,

the diocesan minor seminary,

to prepare for the priesthood.

So,

I told my grandfather who wasn't initially

all that excited,

because it was expensive,

and I remember when he

took me to the front porch,

to have a talk,

and I told him that I

thought I had a vocation,

and it would be great.

And he said, "Well,

if you go you know you can't quit."

[♪]

I showed up one Sunday

evening with my grandfather.

He drove me there and he dropped me off,

and then he left.

And so I'm there by myself,

and I look around-

I'm the new kid,

so I'm the outsider, and I'm black.

So,

obviously I didn't fit right in.

So, I was like "What the heck?"

MICHAEL: Did you have kind of

a fear of failure, in the early days?

It's a new world in every way.

It's a foreign world.

And the work level,

the work is much more demanding.

So obviously that would

create the sense in you

that I may not be able to,

to live up to the expectation.

[♪]

Father Coleman said to me

that I would not be considered

the equal of whites

if I didn't learn

how to speak standard English.

As much as it hurt,

there was some truth to it.

I'm some place

between my dialect,

and quote unquote

talking "Southern."

But certainly nothing

close to standard English.

But internally,

I vowed to learn English,

and that no one would be

able to ever say that about me.

CLARENCE: We were doing Robert

Frost and we came across this poem:

"Two roads diverged in a wood,

and I took the one

less traveled by,

and that has made all the difference."

[♪]

And what I was thinking

was; someplace in my life

the roads had split off,

I was no longer in the world

that was my comfort zone.

[♪]

I had gone to the seminary,

I had gone to all-white schools

and then it's made

all the difference.

What was that difference?

That, I didn't know.

I was never going to

be a part of that world;

I was never going to be white.

The problem is I could

never go back completely

to the world I came from.

I loved the contemplative life.

I loved Lauds,

which was the morning prayers,

vespers, evening prayers.

I loved the Gregorian chant.

Academically, I did very well.

MICHAEL: So what was the

caption alongside your photo?

CLARENCE: I think it's "Blew that test,

only a 98."

Here was my thinking,

you assume you're going to be

discriminated against,

or at the very least

you're not going to

be treated the

same way as whites.

So, I can't get a 98.

And if I'm going to

force someone to have to

discriminate against me,

then I have to have a hundred.

In other words,

leave them nothing but race,

to force them. It's sort of like,

checkmate.

OK?

In those days the

Catholic church

had little to say about racism.

It seemed self-evident

that the treatment of blacks

in America cried out for the

unequivocal condemnation

of a righteous institution.

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR: Well,

there may be some tear gassing ahead.

I say to you this afternoon

that I would rather die on the

highways of Alabama than

make a butchery of my conscience.

POLICE: See that they

turn around and disperse.

CLARENCE: Yet,

the church remained silent

and its silence haunted me.

I prayed for guidance

in the presence

of the Blessed Sacrament

but instead of comfort I found

only sorrow and confusion.

One day we were sitting in class,

I don't know,

maybe history class,

or something.

People pass notes from time to time,

so I get a note;

the note said "I like

Martin Luther King",

and then you open up,

it's a small note,

you open up the inside,

and it just had the word, dead.

You have a range of emotions:

disappointment, anger.

You want to lash out.

You want to yell.

In the spring,

when I was walking back into the hall.

Someone was down watching TV,

and he yelled out

from the basement as I

was walking in the dorm.

He said "Martin Luther

King has just been shot."

NEWSCASTER: Dr. King was

standing on the balcony of a second-floor

hotel room tonight when,

according to a companion,

a shot was fired from

across the street.

CLARENCE: And the seminarian

in front of me said "That's good.

I hope the son of a bitch dies."

And that was pretty

much the end of me.

That was it.

Because that was the opposite

of what I thought you said

about a man of God

and what a seminarian,

or the church, should do.

To the extent that I had any ambivalence,

it ended that day.

The priesthood had been my only goal,

and when that went away

it was like I

was in a free fall.

So anyway I, I go home,

and now I face my grandfather.

GINNI THOMAS: As Clarence tells me

about going to his grandfather to tell him

he was quitting the seminary it

probably was the hardest point

of his life, to tell that man

that he was disappointing him.

And I'd like to say,

"It was facing the music",

but it wasn't music.

It was a stony silence almost,

and it was a coldness.

So he took me

to the living room,

and he said that,

as he had promised when we came to live

in '55, 1955,

the door opened inward then,

now it was opening outward.

And I was to leave

his house if I was,

since I had made decisions of a man,

I should live like one.

And he said, I will never forget,

"To-day, this day."

I think I was fumbling around,

I said

"Well, are you still going

to help me with college?"

He said "No. You're a

man. You figure it out."

CLARENCE: Where could

I go? What would I do?

First the seminary,

then the country,

now the only real

home I'd ever known.

All were crashing around me.

[♪]

My mother had an extra

room in her apartment,

so I went over there.

MICHAEL: I think you've said

it felt like you were reversing

your first walk to

your grandfather's.

Yeah, I was going from 1955,

I had come to

this wonderful place

that was a sanctuary,

and now I was going

back to live with my mother

in her apartment.

NEWSCASTER 1: Washington,

Chicago, Boston, New York, these are

just a few of the cities in

which the negro anguish

over Dr. King's murder expressed

itself in violent destruction.

CLARENCE: Summer of '68

was when you had a lot of the riots,

I mean I thought

everything was coming apart

NEWSCASTER 2: Some buildings

were put to the torch while the looters

stripped block after block

of stores along 7th Street.

CLARENCE: I was getting ready for

work and I was listening to the radio

while I did that.

NEWSCASTER: Oh my God.

Senator Kennedy has been shot.

CLARENCE: And they announced

that he had been assassinated.

Well I mean, I dropped to my knees,

I said "it's over."

Bad things were happening.

My grandfather

had kicked me out.

I remember sitting there,

"Kennedy, King, Kennedy."

"KKK" I remember writing it.

Oh my God, there it is!

'KKK'you know.

And it was, it was,

that was probably the last straw.

I mean,

I didn't need a last straw but that was it.

That was the nail

in the coffin for me.

And for the first time in

my life racism and race

explained everything.

It became, sort of,

the substitute religion;

I shoved aside Catholicism

and now it was this,

it was all about race.

[♪]

Every southern black had known

such moments and felt the rage

that threatened to burn

through the mask of meekness

and submission behind

which we hid our true feelings.

I'm angry with my grandfather.

I'm angry with the church.

If it's a warm day, I'm angry.

If it's a cold day, I'm angry.

I'm sort of flying,

lashing out at every single thing.

Nothing is right.

I'm staying in a room

with a mynah bird,

with my mother,

with her two big dogs.

But the one out, that I do have,

is that I was accepted

to Holy Cross.

I've got one door is open,

only one, and that was Holy Cross.

GINNI THOMAS: When he left the

seminary and found his way to Holy Cross,

he was entering society

that was in turmoil,

and he found his way to

other blacks at Holy Cross

who were very

radical and Marxist.

[♪]

We're supposed to

be revolutionaries.

So you go to the local army

navy store in Worcester,

and you get army fatigues,

and boots.

Why that was the

dress is beyond me,

but that's the way we dressed.

I wore carpenter's pants,

and bib overalls.

STOKELY CARMICHAEL: We are

going to shoot the cops who are shooting

our black brothers in

the back in this country!

We were for anybody who was kind of,

in your face.

It could be Stokely Carmichael,

it could be H. Rap Brown.

H RAP BROWN: The brothers in here

maintain that they will stay here until

the university is willing

to talk on their terms.

It could be Angela Davis,

it could be Huey Newton.

So the more radical tended to be

the people we gravitated toward.

Art Martin decided to start a

black student union, and he had

some ideas,

but I could type. I said "I'll type it up."

I had my trusty

Smith-Corona typewriter

with automatic return.

I said "What do you want in it?"

He said "anything

you put in it."

So I typed it up and that

became the Black Student Union.

MICHAEL: When did you first meet

Kathy Ambush, and what was she like?

CLARENCE: I met her

in my sophomore year.

Our politics overlapped,

our politics tended to be

more radical, to the left.

We started dating,

and would date throughout my time

at Holy Cross.

When I would go back home,

the exchanges with my grand father

were really horrible.

Because I'd talk about the revolution,

and I would

be drinking, and would,

and wouldn't comb my hair,

and it was bad.

And he looked at me would

say and he "I didn't raise

you to be like this."

"After all our sacrifices,

this is what you've become."

I thought he was weak.

And he thought I was,

I'd gone up north and become,

as he said,

"one of those damn educated fools."

That I went up north and

they put all that foolishness

in my head.

And my brother who came

from the Vietnam War didn't like it.

CLARENCE: He told me that

all of us should leave the country.

MICHAEL: All you radicals?

All of us should

leave the country.

He had no use for any of us.

CLARENCE: But I went

right back to my radical friends.

In the spring of 1970 I was one

of several Black Students Union

members who went to Boston

to take part in

an anti-war rally.

The organizers of the

rally urged us to march to

Harvard square to

protest the treatment

of America's domestic

political prisoners.

Off we went chanting "Ho,

Ho, Ho Chi Minh."

And demanding

freedom for Angela Davis,

Erica Huggins and anyone

else we could think of.

On the way to Cambridge

we stopped at this liquor store,

and this poor guy, he saw us,

and he gave us the liquor.

I think he gave us some potato chips,

or something, too.

But he said "just go."

And then on the way we consumed

this liquid courage, you know?

Then we proceeded to be back

and forth in Cambridge all night.

I mean there was teargas,

sirens, it was bad.

[♪]

getting hurt, or anything else,

or what was happening

to other people.

I got back to campus

at 4 in the morning,

horrified by what

I had just done.

I had let myself be

swept up by an angry mob

for no good reason other than,

that I too was angry.

I stopped in front of the chapel

and prayed for the first time

in nearly 2 years.

I asked God,

I said "If you take anger out of my heart,

I'll never hate again."

And that was the

beginning of the slow return

to where I started.

[♪]

[♪]

CLARENCE: You know what

Yale was back in the 1970s.

Yale was,

four generations of Groton and, and

Phillips Exeter,

and "my father's grandfather was here."

And there were secret societies,

and all that sort of stuff.

It was a different world,

and it was a world that

I didn't quite understand.

When Jamal was born in February

of my second year of law school.

It woke me up about

the direction that we were

headed in in our country,

and what the prospects

would be for him.

I watched busing on TV,

and busing was a big deal,

remember because it

was so violent in Boston.

NEWSCASTER: By federal court order

a fleet of buses was hired to transport

black students to

all white schools,

and whites to black

neighborhoods.

Coming to South Boston,

a traditionally conservative

and Irish enclave,

blacks who made

the trip were met with cat calls,

curses and worse.

[♪]

CLARENCE: I'd been to South Boston,

and I was scared to death

to be over there,

and the schools were as

bad as the schools in Roxbury

where the black kids were from.

So why were you sending

a kid through all that trouble,

to go to school that's as bad,

or worse?

That didn't make

any sense to me.

Someone has a theory,

and then they insert human beings

You know sort of like "have theory,

add people."

You know, it's like, instant,

instant coffee or something.

"Have coffee."

"Add water."

But I knew one thing,

nobody was going to have

some social experiment

and throw my son in there.

[♪]

In law school, I would describe

myself as a lazy libertarian.

And it was because I

was looking at structures,

or restrictions on me.

Whether there were religious restrictions,

or structures or

strictures on me.

My grandfather and his rules,

society and its rules,

and I guess in a sense,

I was saying

"all of you leave me alone."

In fact, my mantra, when I was

in law school, is "leave me alone."

BOARD MEMBER 1: Mr. Roark,

the commission is yours.

MICHAEL: Were you influenced by

Ayn Rand's

libertarian philosophy?

CLARENCE: You know,

Ayn Rand and Fountainhead started

and this would play

out later in law school.

BOARD MEMBER 2: We want

you to adapt your building like this.

BOARD MEMBER 1: And we must

always compromise with the general taste

Mr. Roark,

you understand that I'm sure.

HOWARD ROARK: No.

If you want my work you

must take it as it is or not at all.

CLARENCE: And so, when you

read these books, you say "Yeah, OK.

I'll become a day laborer

rather than be told what to do."

BOARD MEMBER 3: Roark, this is

sheer insanity can't you give in just once?

After all, you have to live.

BOARD MEMBER 3: How

else? Don't you have to work?

HOWARD ROARK: I'd rather

work as a day laborer if necessary.

CLARENCE: I would rather total

failure in your world than to be told

what to do, or to be made to do

something that I think is wrong.

Yale was the end of the line,

and I made it through.

So, I really wanted my

grandfather to be there to

witness the end, to witness

that the kid that he took in in 1955,

crossed the finish line.

[♪]

My grandfather did not come.

He always had a reason.

And you know, I think in sort of,

I think he was upset

with me,

I could understand that.

And I certainly had not given

him many good reasons to have

any deep,

and warm or fuzzy feelings about me,

or my graduation.

So, nobody could come.

That was probably more difficult for me,

and embittered me,

more than anything else.

I interviewed for jobs in D.C.,

Atlanta, New York, L.A.,

with anyone,

anywhere who might hire me.

If you were black,

and you were at Yale, the presumptions

were quite different than,

if you were white.

So if you're white,

and you graduated from Yale,

the presumption is what?

It is that you are

really among the best.

On the other hand,

if you're black and you're there,

you didn't really

quite belong there.

So, we'll discount that a bit.

They can say 10 percent,

5 percent whatever.

But the reality was the

discounted approach resulted in

certainly me not

being able to get a job.

MICHAEL: But, eventually,

the Missouri Attorney General,

Jack Danforth,

offered you a job.

CLARENCE: It was

the only job offer I got.

It was the quintessential

Hobson's choice.

He went on to promise me "Clarence,

I promise you more

work for less money,

than anybody in the country."

The pay was ten

thousand eight hundred.

The hardest part about

taking the job was,

he was a Republican,

and the idea of

working for a Republican

was repulsive, at best.

I was a registered Democrat.

I was left wing.

As nice as he was,

he was still a Republican.

Putting that nicety aside,

I wound up going.

Cases poured through

there; in those days

the Attorney General's

office handled all the appeals

from the local prosecutors

across the state.

At the time,

my thinking was that all blacks

were political prisoners.

That's,

that's sort of the sophisticated level

at which I looked at the

criminal justice system.

I worried about what I would do,

when I got a case

involving black defendants,

and then it happened.

This guy was sitting on a bench,

or something,

and this black woman comes by.

He's black, she's black.

She's got her two, or three,

year old kid in the car

In those days,

most people didn't have air conditioning.

So, the windows are down.

He comes up to the car,

at the stop light,

with an old style can opener,

with a point, puts it to

the kid's neck,

and forces his way in the car,

threatening the kid.

And then he takes her

to a remote location,

rapes and sodomizes her,

and he takes her to another location,

and rapes and

sodomizes her again.

This case was far from unusual.

Blacks were responsible for

almost 80% of violent crimes

committed against blacks,

and killed over 90%

of black murder victims.

For most people that would be obvious,

for me it was one of

these road to

Damascus experiences.

Jack Danforth got elected to the Senate,

and I had already

been there two and a half years,

and I really wanted

to move more toward business.

I had better options now.

[♪]

It was a fine job but it was

not enough work for me.

I had too much energy.

They spoon-fed the work

and they parceled it out.

I was used to the

work pouring in.

My Grandfather's Son,

I noticed that Monsanto employed a number

of talented blacks who

should have been moving up

the corporate ladder

far more quickly.

MICHAEL: Did you go to speak

to the affirmative action manager?

I confronted him about it and

he pulls out this EEO report

with the numbers on

it; it was one of these

computer print-outs,

as though those are people.

You know he's not talking

about who is getting training,

whose got mentors,

what assignments they have,

who is getting promoted.

He's got this report that he

shows to the labor department,

and that is these statistics.

MICHAEL: The affirmative action manager,

he was African American?

Yes, yeah, mhm.

MICHAEL: He wasn't sympathetic?

He was doing his job and

his reports said he was OK.

MICHAEL: He didn't care that these

other black managers were stalled?

Well I don't know if he cared.

He was doing his job,

and the reports were OK.

That's the most I got.

But I just thought that

we're kidding ourselves.

We're looking at numbers and

the numbers prove everything,

and human beings are

having a lot of difficulties.

CLARENCE: I could

feel the golden handcuffs

of a comfortable but

unfulfilling life snapping

shut on my wrists.

I had to quit now

or I never would.

And shortly after that I get

a call from Senator Danforth

to see if I would be

interested in working for him.

[♪]

RONALD REAGAN: More than

anything else I want my candidacy

to unify our country,

to renew the American spirit,

and sense of purpose.

CLARENCE: In the fall

of 1980 I had decided

to vote for Ronald Reagan.

It was a giant step

for a black man.

But I was distressed by the

Democratic party's promises

to legislate the problems

of blacks out of existence.

RONALD REAGAN: I pledge to you to

restore the federal government the capacity

to do the people's work

without dominating their lives.

CLARENCE: Reagan

by contrast was promising

an end to the indiscriminate

social engineering

of the 60's and 70's.

Reagan won in a landslide.

RONALD REAGAN: So help me God.

CHIEF JUSTICE: May I congratulate you,

Sir.

CLARENCE: For the

first time in my adult life

Washington was full

of serious talk about

the possibility of getting

government off the backs

of the poor.

THOMAS SOWELL: This is

really an historic opportunity.

The economic and social

advancement of blacks

in this country is still

a great unfinished task.

CLARENCE: Tom Sowell

invited me to this conference.

And it would be named

the Fairmont Conference

because it was held at the

Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco.

It was how do we rethink

the policies toward blacks

in this country in a

new administration?

THOMAS SOWELL: Many

social problems are worsening,

continued

disintegration of families

CLARENCE: I sat at this table.

And there was a young

black reporter there.

And I knew nothing

about the press.

One question he asked me

was "why was I so interested

in all these social issues?"

And I explained to him

because of the destruction I saw

it doing at home in Savannah.

And as an example of that,

I used my sister and her

kids being objects

of these programs.

Little did I know,

he would write an article about this,

and would turn it into an op-ed.

[♪]

GINNI THOMAS: The article

by Juan Williams became a point

at which Clarence

became a public persona.

[♪]

Then license is given to others,

to attack you in whatever

way they want to.

You're not really black

because you're not doing

what you expect

black people to do.

You weren't supposed to oppose

busing; you weren't supposed

to oppose welfare.

MICHAEL: Perhaps it marked a

course for you, Justice Thomas.

CLARENCE: Oh,

I don't know if it marked the course,

but there was no going back.

[♪]

[♪]

The Reagan administration

was running into the storm.

Everything the president did,

he was called a racist.

That was from

the very beginning.

I was under constant attack.

We have attempted in the last

2 years to remedy a wide range

NEWSCASTER: Congressman Barney

Frank says he remains skeptical of progress

under the current

administration.

RONALD REAGAN: I'm pleased that

this is also an opportunity to acknowledge

CLARENCE: We have a positive record

that we should never back down from.

That point is one that I

cannot stress enough.

Any black misguided

enough to accept a job

in the Reagan administration

was automatically branded

an Uncle Tom.

After I wrote a letter

to the editor of Playboy,

taking issue with a 1986

article by Hodding Carter,

called "Reagan and

the Revival of Racism",

Carter responded as follows:

[♪]

Not a single civil rights

leader objected to this

nakedly racist language.

MICHAEL: On the personal side,

your marriage was strained

at this point?

It is one of those things

and I just I didn't think

it was going to work.

I think many people

go through that.

But what do you think

was the reason in this case?

I, the, it just wasn't there,

and I think that

you have to be honest with yourself,

and not wait

until it deteriorates,

or you do harm to somebody

who did you no harm.

MICHAEL: I can imagine

how difficult it must have been,

for all three of you.

Yeah, it was... You know,

you live with it.

CLARENCE: Jamal

came to live with me.

His mother thought

it would be best

for me to have

primary responsibility.

Being with him, was my happy place,

being at home with him.

[♪]

MICHAEL: How did you first hear

that your grandfather was dying?

Well I had been,

I don't know why how we get

so busy in D.C.

I totally regret not going home more,

I just regret it.

CLARENCE: I was with my brother,

and um,

he told me my

grandfather had died.

And that was like,

I think from then on

I was in a bit of a fog.

It was really horrible.

When I got to the funeral,

no sooner did the service begin

than I started to weep

shamelessly and uncontrollably.

Was think of the things I

wish I had done differently.

Why had I spent so much

time arguing with him?

I would never be able to

tell him how right he'd been,

or how much I

admired and loved him.

[♪]

Shortly after my

grandfather's death

my grandmother had a

stroke while lying in bed.

Within an hour or so,

she was dead.

Certainly,

it was like a trap door,

somebody opened the trap door,

and you fell through it.

And there was no foundation.

And by the time I went

back to Washington,

I had thought a lot

more about things.

I would go outside and

gaze at the Capitol Dome.

So,

I'm asking myself why am I doing this?

There is nothing

positive going on,

and I am getting the

heck beat out of me.

I had to then flip

it around a little bit.

For what will you die?

Is there something in

life that you will die for?

What about your principles?

So,

I decided that the principles

on which I was raised,

my grandparents,

the principles of this country,

were worth dying for.

So what are these principles?

I was interested in,

why this government?

Why this government?

Why not a parliamentary system?

Why not a dictatorship?

When Clarence was at EEOC,

one of the best things,

looking back, that he did

was to hire two speech

writers who worked with him

on reading founding documents,

and understanding

American exceptionalism.

So,

John Marini and Ken Masugi were anchors

for what came out to

be his jurisprudence.

And we would literally spend

hours discussing the founding.

And then they would

give me reading materials,

and we would write articles,

and we would go off to

American Political

Science Association events,

and argue with positivists,

and libertarians.

Oh, gosh.

It was,

now that was a lot of fun,

in the sea of all this stuff.

Thomas Jefferson

had written in 1776

"All men are created equal.

They are endowed

by their creator

with certain

unalienable rights."

That's natural

law in a nutshell.

How then could a country

founded on these principles

have permitted slavery

and segregation to exist?

The answer was that it couldn't,

not without being

untrue to its own ideals.

[♪]

I was looking for

a way of thinking,

a set of ideals that fundamentally,

at its core,

said slavery is wrong,

at its core...

Which natural

law of course does.

[♪]

I was scheduled to go up

to New York to a meeting,

and she happened to be there.

GINNI THOMAS: We

met in 1986 at a conference

on how long does America

need race preference policies

to get over slavery.

And his experiences were so resonant,

and so powerful,

and so genuine.

I was struck by him.

CLARENCE: She was a gift

from God that I had prayed for.

And, you know then I was iffy,

because I started

questioning God's package.

You know,

like what are you doing?

(Chuckles)

You pray for God to

send you someone,

he sends you someone,

and you say "Oh but she's white"

or "she's younger."

He's sent you someone.

What are you talking about?

So that was the end of that,

and she has been a

fabulous gift from God.

[♪]

George H.W.

Bush's transition team

asked if I would be interested

in becoming a federal judge?

"That's a job for old people",

I said.

I can't see myself spending

the rest of my life as a judge."

They asked me to

talk to Larry Silberman

who was a judge

on the D.C. Circuit.

I said "Larry,

I don't want a lifetime appointment."

He said "Clarence,

it's not slavery.

You can leave if

you don't like it."

[♪]

But once I got to

the D.C. Circuit,

I really enjoyed it.

I enjoyed the work.

I liked the people.

Virginia worked across

the street from me.

So we commuted in every day

and we really enjoyed

our little house.

We really enjoyed our projects.

We enjoyed our anonymity,

and our time together.

Here at home the search is

on for a Supreme Court nominee

With the retirement of

Justice Thurgood Marshall.

CLARENCE: All I know is

that Justice Marshall retired,

and that was a shock.

So, I went to work on Sunday,

one of my law clerks

was all up in arms,

and he says

"Kennebunkport is on the line."

It was the president telling

me to come up on Monday,

to have lunch to discuss

this Supreme Court thing.

PRESIDENT BUSH: I am

very pleased to announce

that I will nominate

Judge Clarence Thomas

to serve as associate justice of

the United States Supreme Court.

What do you say to critics who

say the only reason you're being

picked is because you're black?

I think a lot worse

things have been said.

I disagree with that,

but I'll have to live with it.

PRESIDENT: Refer

them to the President.

[Laughter]

How about that for an answer?

Well,

I'll also say I didn't make the selection.

CLARENCE: I mean the

attacks started immediately.

And the things

they accuse you of...

They accuse of everything but murder,

I guess.

NEWSCASTER 1: The Senate Majority Leader,

George Mitchell told reporters

that the nomination

shows that President Bush

is against quotas

for every position

except the Supreme Court.

NEWSCASTER 2: Judge

Thomas praises Louis Farrakhan,

the Black Muslim minister

notorious for his pro-Hitler,

anti-Semitic rhetoric.

NEWSCASTER 3: Thomas'

strict Catholic education terrifies

abortion rights groups afraid

of more abortion restrictions.

MICHAEL: Did you meet with

the board members of the NAACP?

They said they were

going to be noncommittal,

and were not going to oppose me.

Well,

shortly after that they opposed me.

His inconsistent views

on civil rights policies,

which make him an

unpredictable element

in an increasingly radical

and conservative court.

And what I was told by friends,

who gave me a copy of

the AFLCIO's letter to them,

requiring them to oppose me.

What I was told was

that they needed cover

for the women's

groups to oppose me.

So they needed

the NAACP out front.

ACTIVIST: Write your

senators and representatives,

tell them Clarence

Thomas is unacceptable.

He has indicated that

he believes in natural law

and he does not

believe in privacy.

We don't need a lot of

questions to be asked

before we Bork this guy,

we simply immediately Bork him.

CALL ROOM: We want you to

organize pickets of their offices,

follow them from the

airport to their supermarket.

PATRICIA IRELAND: There is

substantial opposition to Clarence Thomas.

His history of supporting

a judicial philosophy

that is really out of step

with the Bill of Rights

and the Constitution.

CLARENCE: We know

exactly what's going on here,

and to pretend that it is

for some other reason, stop.

Do I have like "stupid"

written on the back of my shirt?

I mean, come on,

we know what this is all about.

This isn't about what

they say it's about,

so people should

just tell the truth.

This is the wrong black guy.

He has to be destroyed.

Then now at least we

are honest with each other.

[cameras clicking]

GINNI THOMAS: He knew he

was going into the trial of his life

with the Senate run

by the Democrats.

SENATOR BIDEN: The

hearing will come to order.

GINNI THOMAS: We

knew it was in the lion's den.

SENATOR BIDEN: Good morning,

Judge.

Welcome to the blinding lights.

Finding out what you

mean when you say

that you would apply

the natural law philosophy

to the Constitution is,

in my view,

the single most important

task of this committee.

MICHAEL: Senator Biden

was very focused natural law.

Who knows,

I have no idea what he was talking about.

SENATOR BIDEN: I just

want to make sure we all know

That you and I know, at least,

what we are talking about here.

There is a fervent and

aggressive school of thought

that wishes to see natural law

further inform the Constitution

Argued against by the positivists,

led by Judge Bork.

Now again,

that may be lost on all the people,

you know and I know

what we are talking about.

CLARENCE: I have to be

perfectly honest with you.

You sit there,

and you have no idea

what they are talking about.

All I know is that he was

asking me these questions

Someone may apply it in a way,

like Moore,

who leads him in a direction that is,

quote, "liberal."

You may apply it in a way

that leads you in a direction

that is conservative,

or you may,

like many argue,

not apply it at all.

But it is a fundamental question

that is going to be

almost impossible

for non-lawyers to

grasp in an exchange,

but you know and I know it is a big,

big deal,

CLARENCE: One of the

things you do in hearings

is you have to sit there

and look attentively at people

you know have no idea

what they're talking about.

And it was fine.

I understood what

he was trying to do.

I didn't really appreciate it.

Natural law was nothing

more than a way of tricking me

into talking about abortion,

since many Catholic

moral philosophers

saw the two things

as intimately related.

But my interest in

natural law was different.

SENATOR BIDEN: Those who

subscribe to this moral-code view

of natural law

call into question

a wide range of

personal and family rights,

from reproductive freedom

to each individual's

choice over procreation.

[♪]

NEWSCASTER: On day two,

Judiciary committee Democrats tried again,

but again couldn't

convince Clarence Thomas

of their need to know

how he would rule

on a woman's

right to an abortion.

REPORTER: How are you?

Are you holding up okay?

NEWSCASTER: Clarence Thomas

signaled he is holding up just fine

as he went before the

Senate Judiciary committee

for a third day.

Abortion, once again,

topped the agenda.

CLARENCE: Most of my

opponents on the judiciary committee

cared about only one thing.

How would I rule

on abortion rights?

You really didn't matter,

and your life didn't matter.

What mattered was

what they wanted,

and what they wanted

was this particular issue.

SENATOR LEAHY: Have you

ever had discussion of Roe v. Wade,

other than in this room?

JUDGE THOMAS: Only,

I guess, Senator, in the fact

that in the most general sense.

If you are asking

me whether or not

I have ever debated

the contents of it,

the answer to that is no,

Senator.

SENATOR LEAHY: Well,

with all due respect, Judge,

I have some difficulty

with your answer.

You ask us to believe that an

intelligent and outspoken person

like yourself has never

discussed Roe v. Wade

with another human being?

MICHAEL: They refused to believe

you had not discussed Roe v. Wade.

Well you know what?

They should...

They refuse to

believe a lot of things.

It's really... Isn't

that fascinating?

I had to,

I had to have discussed it

because they wanted me

to had to have discussed it.

It goes back to thing

about affirmative action.

You have to believe

in affirmative action,

because we think you ought

to believe in affirmative action.

Well how is that

different from slavery?

How is that different

from segregation?

How is that different

from being told

"you can't walk

across that park"?

"Oh,

you can't think those thoughts."

How is that any different?

I'd prefer to be

excluded from the park

because I can live

my life quite freely

without having

set foot in a park.

But you can't live it freely

without having

your own thoughts.

I felt as though in my life,

I had been looking

at the wrong people,

as the people who would

be problematic toward me.

We were told that "Oh

it's going to be the bigot

in the pickup truck.

It's going be the Klansman.

It's going to be

the rural sheriff."

And I'm not saying

that there weren't

some of those who were bad,

but it turned out,

that through all of that,

ultimately the

biggest impediment,

was the modern day liberal.

That they were the ones who

would discount all those things,

because they have one issue,

or because they can

they have the authority,

the power to caricature you.

Thank you all,

and thank you and your family

We will recess for five minutes.

[♪]

CLARENCE: We

were just exhausted.

So, we went over just briefly,

and it was out of season

to Cape May,

just to get away from

the Washington area.

[♪]

We had just gotten back,

and that's when all

heck broke loose.

GINNI THOMAS: A call

came from the White House

that we were going to

be visited by the FBI.

MICHAEL: What was that

like when the FBI came?

As soon as they stepped in,

they said

"do you know Anita Hill?"

And then they said "Did

you ever try to go out with her

or did you ever discuss

pornographic stuff with her?"

"No, no way."

And that was,

I said "you got to be kidding me."

And then it's just like,

you're deflated.

You said "This is

where we're going now."

And, so I maybe,

I felt more like Joseph K in The Trial,

that suddenly you're

minding your business,

and you were

arrested one morning.

You're entering

an unknown world.

Well, this obviously isn't

anything of any importance.

Quite honestly,

I can't remember a single offense

that could be

charged against me.

It's obviously a mistake,

something very trivial.

CLARENCE: I have no idea

what I was supposed to have done.

I'm sorry to disappoint

you but I am afraid

that you wont find any

subversive literature

or pornography.

Don't touch those record albums!

AGENT 1: What is this thing?

- My phonograph.

- AGENT 2: Well, what's this?

CLARENCE: The FBI

called back that afternoon,

they said that "This

is uncorroborated.

There are no facts,"

that "We don't think

there's anything to it."

NINA TOTENBERG: In an affidavit

filed with Senate Judiciary committee

law professor Anita Hill

said Thomas began

asking her out socially

and refused to

accept her explanation

that she did not

think it appropriate

to go out with her boss.

The relationship, she said,

became even more strained

when Thomas, in work situations,

began to discuss sex.

It was leaked.

This was a, this was a crime.

This was a criminal

act that did this.

But in any case, it was leaked,

and that changed everything.

REPORTER: Judge, do you think

you are being treated unfairly, sir?

MICHAEL: After the leak the

media just camped out at your house?

CLARENCE: Yeah, they stayed,

and then whenever we left,

there would be a chase car,

and there was a

motorcycle behind us.

So,

you're literally under siege.

NEWSCASTER: The opponents of

Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas

want to delay a vote

on this confirmation

because of charges

of sexual harassment.

In light of these revelations

which we consider to be

very, very serious,

then at the minimum

we need to see a delay,

a delay of this nomination.

PROTESTERS: Hey! Hey!

Ho! Ho!

Anita Hill yes!

Thomas no!

NEWSCASTER:

Several interest groups

including the Women's

Legal Defense Fund

and the National

Organization for Women

are also calling for a delay.

CLARENCE: You worry about,

what can they convince people

that I have done.

You got all these PR firms,

and slick law firms,

I'm just sitting there,

I mean it's my wife and me.

We're like at home,

and we have a couple of prayer

partners who would come over.

GINNI THOMAS: And

they helped us in our home,

read through the Bible,

and put on the armor of God

because it felt like the

demons were loose.

NEWSCASTER: The eroding

support for Thomas finally forced

Republicans to admit a

Tuesday vote would be a bad idea

and there was unanimous

consent to wait until next Tuesday

to allow a full hearing on the

allegations in the meantime.

But Thomas's key backer

delivered an

impassioned prediction

of what a public

hearing would turn into.

SENATOR DANFORTH: Oh,

it's going to be a field day.

Read all about it!

Tune in tomorrow,

and every day for

the next seven days

to get everything and anything

that anybody wants to say

about Clarence Thomas!

[mantle being struck]

SENATOR BIDEN: The

hearing will come to order.

Mr. Chairman, Senator Thurmond,

members of the committee,

I welcome the opportunity

to clear my name today.

The first I learned

of the allegations

by Prof. Anita Hill was on September 25,

1991,

when the FBI came to my home

to investigate her allegations.

I was shocked, surprised, hurt,

and enormously saddened.

I have not been the

same since that day.

Let me describe my

relationship with Anita Hill.

In 1981,

after I went to the Department of Education

as an Assistant Secretary

in the Office of Civil Rights,

I hired Anita Hill.

Anita Hill was an

attorney advisor

who worked directly with me.

Anita Hill joined me at EEOC.

At EEOC,

our relationship was more distant.

And our contacts less frequent.

Although I did not see Anita

Hill often after she left EEOC,

I did see her on 1

or 2 subsequent visits

to Tulsa,

Oklahoma and on one visit,

I believe she drove

me to the airport.

I find it particularly troubling

that she never raised any hint

that she was

uncomfortable with me.

She did not raise or mention it

when considering

moving with me to EEOC

from the Department of Education

and she never raised it

with me when she left EEOC

and was moving on in her life.

But,

I have not said or done the things

that Anita Hill has alleged.

God has gotten me through

the days since September 25th

and he is my judge.

GINNI THOMAS: I have to tell

you from my perch behind him.

I was just watching the senators

and feeling rage towards them.

And I especially focused

on Senator Kennedy,

and the things that I knew

he had done in his life,

and the nerve of any

of this to come out

to a man like I know and I love.

JUDGE Thomas: Mr. Chairman, I have never,

in all my life, felt such hurt,

such pain, such agony.

My family and I have

been done a grave

and irreparable injustice.

SENATOR BIDEN: Thank you, Judge.

The hearing is in

recess for 5 minutes.

MICHAEL: So, then you left,

and went back home.

Yeah.

MICHAEL: And

Anita Hill testified.

Did you watch that?

CLARENCE: Oh, God, no.

SENATOR BIDEN: Professor,

do you swear to tell the whole truth

and nothing but the truth,

so help you, God?

PROFESSOR HILL: I do.

SENATOR BIDEN: Thank you.

My name is Anita F. Hill,

and I am a professor of law

at the University of Oklahoma.

At the Department of Education

Judge Thomas asked me

to go out socially with him.

I declined the invitation

to go out socially with him.

My working relationship

became even more strained

when Judge Thomas began to

use work situations to discuss sex.

His conversations

were very vivid.

When Senate staff asked

me about these matters,

I felt that I had

a duty to report.

I could not keep silent.

GINNI THOMAS:

This was a kill-shot.

We could feel it.

So,

they were coming to destroy my husband,

not just discredit him or

differ with his point of view.

This was the kill-shot.

Can you tell me what

incidences occurred,

of the ones you have described to us,

occurred in his office?

Well, I recall specifically that

the incident about the Coke can

occurred in his

office at the EEOC.

SENATOR BIDEN: And

what was that incident again?

The incident with

regard to the Coke can,

PROFESSOR HILL: The incident

involved his going to his desk,

getting up from a worktable,

going to his desk,

looking at this can and saying,

"Who put pubic hair on my Coke?"

GINNI THOMAS: I was the one

that tried to watch what was going on

for as long as I could

and it looked bad.

It looked like it

could be credible.

She was painting

a compelling picture

and yet coming up

with different iterations

from what we had been

told her allegations were.

So it was growing.

Someone had worked with her,

or she had found new aspects

of her story that she

was putting out there.

SENATOR BIDEN: Are there any other

incidents that occurred in his office,

with just-in his office, period?

There is... I recall

at least one instance

in his office at the EEOC

where he discussed some

pornographic material,

or he brought up the

substance or the content

of pornographic material.

SENATOR BIDEN: Again,

it is difficult, but for the record,

what substance did he bring

up in this instance, at EEOC,

in his office?

PROFESSOR HILL: This

was a reference to an individual

who had a very large penis

and he used the name

that he had referred to

in the pornographic material...

SENATOR BIDEN: Do

you recall what it was?

Yes, I do.

The name that was referred

to was Long Dong Silver.

GINNI THOMAS: Honestly it was a

nightmare to hear about any of her charges

whether it was the pubic

hair on the Coke can

or Long Dong Silver.

It was all jarring.

It was all so wrong,

it was so shocking.

And I'm sure America

was tuning in to C-SPAN.

And it was horrendous

because it was so untrue.

CLARENCE: Then she told

me what they were saying,

I know that didn't happen",

because I'd never known.

So yeah,

I was tormenting myself,

trying to dig through

my endless memories.

Did I do something?

Did I say something?

Was it a joke?

And when they said whatever it was,

they said...

I said "that didn't happen."

So,

it was the first relief I felt.

SENATOR SIMPSON:

Why in God's name,

when he left his position

of power or status

or authority over you,

and you left it in 1983,

why in God's name would you

ever speak to a man like that

the rest of your life?

That is a very good question,

and I am sure that I

cannot answer that

to your satisfaction.

I have suggested that I

was afraid of retaliation,

I was afraid of damage

to my professional life.

It just seems so

incredible to me

that you would not only

have visited with him twice

after that period and

after he was no longer able

to manipulate you

or to destroy you,

that you then not

only visited with him

but took him to the airport,

and then 11 times contacted him.

That part of it is the

most contradictory

and puzzling thing for me.

SENATOR BIDEN:

Adjourned until 9 o'clock.

CLARENCE: Senator Danforth

called me at home, after that testimony

and they wanted me

to testify that night,

to not let the testimony,

her testimony be the new-

fill up the news cycle.

NEWSCASTER: This afternoon

Mr. Bush left for Camp David,

but you would have to describe

the mood here as resigned,

I think, and somber,

not at all sure

that Clarence Thomas

is going to survive this.

CLARENCE: So, I reluctantly

agreed to come back at 8 o'clock.

GINNI THOMAS: He may have

thought it was necessary to go back

in front of the Senate,

but honestly from

his wife's point of view

watching the man who is my loved,

beloved husband,

I didn't know he had it

within him to keep going.

So, I get to Jack,

Senator Danforth's office

and we sit,

and we begin to discuss that,

you know what's ahead.

So, I was exhausted,

and I asked him to

get rid of all the people.

He turned off the lights

and I just laid

down on the couch,

and just closed my eyes.

Surrounded by the

darkness of early evening

drifting in the liminal space

between sleep and waking.

I must have been thinking

of "To Kill a Mockingbird"

in which Atticus Finch,

a small-town southern lawyer,

defends Tom Robinson

a black man on trial for

the rape of a white woman.

Gentlemen of the jury,

have you reached a verdict?

CLARENCE: I had lived my

whole life knowing that Tom's fate

might be mine.

Strip away the fancy talk

and you were left

with the same old story.

You can't trust black

men around women.

JURY: We find the

defendant guilty as charged.

CLARENCE: This one may be a big

city judge with a law degree from Yale

but when you get

right down to it,

he's just like the rest of them.

One of the things

that came to mind

after I'd rested a little bit,

I said "Jack,

this is a high-tech lynching"

and he said "If that's what you think,

say it."

And so,

I wrote that on a legal pad,

and he just exhorted me to go

in the name of the Holy Ghost.

[crowd applauding]

GINNI THOMAS: There were conservative

groups who were marshalling activists

from around the

country to come in

and line the hallways.

[crowd shouting and cheering]

And when we came out

of Senator Danforth's office,

and we were going

down the hallway,

and all these people were clapping,

and very excited.

[crowd cheering]

And he said to me

"who are those people?"

And I said "I think

they're angels."

[mantle struck]

SENATOR BIDEN: The

committee will please come to order.

JUDGE THOMAS: Senator, I would

like to start by saying unequivocally,

uncategorically that I deny

each and every single allegation

against me today

that suggested in any way

that I had conversations

of a sexual nature

or about pornographic

material with Anita Hill.

That I ever

attempted to date her.

That I ever had any

personal sexual interest in her,

or that I in any way

ever harassed her.

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 a 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.

GINNI THOMAS: When Clarence

gave the high-tech lynching speech,

I knew how little of my husband

was sitting in front of me.

And I knew that God was with him

because I knew he wasn't

doing that on his own,

because I knew how

weak he was at that point.

And, Judge,

what is your response

to those specific charges again?

Senator,

my response is that I categorically,

unequivocally deny them.

SENATOR PATRICK: Thank you.

They did not occur.

Senator,

I wasn't harmed by the Klan,

I wasn't harmed by

the Knights of Camelia,

I wasn't harmed

by the Aryan race,

I wasn't harmed

by a racist group,

I was harmed by this process,

this process which

accommodated these attacks on me.

I would have preferred

an assassin's bullet

to this kind of living hell

that they have put me

and my family through.

SENATOR GRASSLEY: You

haven't mentioned your grandfather.

I would like to have you

tell me what you think advice,

he would give to you if he

were advising you today.

JUDGE THOMAS: When I was

getting hammered in the public

and getting criticized,

and I complained to him,

he told me to stand

up for what I believe in.

That is what he

would tell me today.

Not to quit, not to turn tail,

not to cry "uncle,"

and not to give

up until I am dead.

He had another statement.

"Give out but don't give up."

That is what he would say to me.

SENATOR HATCH: I would

like you to describe now,

for this gathering,

what it is like to be accused

of sexual harassment.

And let me add the word,

unjustly accused

of sexual harassment.

The day I received a

phone call on Saturday night,

last Saturday night, about 7:30

and told that this was going

to be in the press, I had-I died.

The person you knew,

whether you voted for me

or against me...

died.

In my view,

that is an injustice.

SENATOR HATCH: Judge,

you are here though.

Some people have

been spreading the rumor

that perhaps you

are going to withdraw.

What's Clarence

Thomas going to do?

JUDGE THOMAS: I would

rather die than withdraw.

If they are going to kill me,

they're going to kill me.

So, you would still like to

serve on the Supreme Court?

I would rather die than

withdraw from the process.

Not for the purpose of

serving on the Supreme Court

but for the purpose of not

being driven out of this process.

I will not be scared.

I don't like bullies.

I have never run from bullies.

I never cry uncle and I am

not going to cry uncle today

whether I want to be on

the Supreme Court or not.

We are recessed for 15 minutes.

CROWD: We support Thomas!

We support Thomas!

CLARENCE: The poll numbers

had changed dramatically,

after I testified.

NEWSCASTER: More than

twice as many respondents

to a CBS News/New

York Times poll say

they would likely

believe Judge Thomas

if they were forced to choose.

It's like two thirds of the

country was normally on my side.

The question is on the

confirmation of the nomination

of Clarence Thomas of Georgia

to be an Associate Justice

of the United States

Supreme Court.

SPEAKER: Mr. Deconcini.

DECONCINI: Aye.

SPEAKER: Mr. Kerry

of Massachusetts.

KERRY: No.

SPEAKER: Mr. McCain

McCAIN: Aye.

MICHAEL: Where were you

during the actual Senate vote?

CLARENCE: During the vote,

I was in the tub, and finally,

So I got in the bath,

and just sort of soaked.

QUAYLE: On this vote the

yeas are 52 and the nays are 48.

The nomination of

Clarence Thomas of Georgia

to be associate justice of the

United States Supreme Court

is hereby confirmed.

GINNI THOMAS: So,

when the vote happened,

someone who worked with me

called and told me that he won.

And I went and told Clarence,

and he was in a bath-tub.

And you know, my reaction is,

still pretty much the way it is

now "whoop-dee-damn-doo."

And I wasn't really

all that interested in it.

I just think what

they did was wrong.

So that you get confirmed,

but the bottom line

doesn't change the fact

that what you did was wrong.

Repeat after me:

I, Clarence Thomas...

Do solemnly swear...

JUSTICE WHITE: That I

will support and defend...

That I will support

and defend...

The Constitution

of the United States.

Without warning memories of home,

my grandparents

and the accumulated toil

of the last 4 decades

swirled through my mind.

[♪]

[♪]

those same groups that

opposed you during confirmation,

continued their attack.

Yeah.

Nothing they do

surprises me anymore.

It's just, it's unpleasant,

but that's life.

[♪]

[♪]

The idea was to get rid of me,

and then it was after I was there,

it was to undermine me,

my credibility,

my effectiveness.

You want another bran muffin?

I could use some more coffee,

Clarence.

Sure thing!

Of Springfield police department

vs. Hector Rodriguez Gonzalez.

Justice Thomas?

Uhh, well how were the rest

of you guys going to vote?

I'm voting for the

police department.

I say whatever the

rest of you guys say.

Justice Thomas...

CLARENCE: Well,

it's stereotypes draped in sanctimony

and self-congratulation.

It's a different sets of

rules for different people.

If you criticize a... a black

person who's more liberal,

you are racist.

Whereas if you can

do whatever to me,

or to now, Ben Carson,

ah, and that's fine because

you're not really black,

because you're not doing what

we expect black people to do.

[♪]

It's a tactic and when

people see it being successful,

they don't realize they're

going to be the next ones

in the Tower of London.

It is just a matter of time.

You allow this to be a

precedent in your society,

and you, people might say,

"Oh, it's wonderful.

This particular guy is

getting tarred and feathered."

Well, there's a lot of tar,

and there's a lot of feather,

and eventually

you will be there.

NEWSCASTER: A watershed

moment at the Supreme Court-

Justice Clarence

Thomas asked a question

this is the first time Thomas

has asked a question

in ten years.

He has said he

relies on written briefs.

The case involves

the Federal Law...

[♪]

MICHAEL: Some people say

you don't ask enough questions

during oral argument.

We are judges, not advocates

and I think we

should act accordingly.

Yeah, we might have opinions,

but it's not my job

to argue with lawyers;

it's their job to

make their cases,

and there's an

advocate on each side.

The referee in the game

should not be a participant

in the game.

The way things are

changed is when the opinion,

the senior member

in the majority

assigns who writes the opinion,

when that opinion is,

is in draft form, it circulates.

And that's where

the negotiations

and the real work takes place.

[♪]

One of the joys I get is,

I get four new clerks every year.

I hire four new

clerks every year.

Everybody who's chosen here,

was chosen for a reason,

I'm very careful.

Everybody here is just,

just what a great group.

GINNI THOMAS: When Clarence

started picking non-Ivy League clerks,

some people would

call them "third tier trash"

and those clerks who

were clerking for Clarence,

took it as a badge of honor.

CLARENCE: So why

did you go to USC?

[laughing]

MADELINE LANSKY:

Your favorite question.

CHRISTOPHER MILLS: For law

school I applied sort of all over the place

and just went to the,

went to the best

place I could get in.

CLARENCE: And that was Harvard?

CHRISTOPHER MILLS: I guess.

That's what people told me.

Couldn't have done any better,

huh?

[laughter]

We had some suggestions for you,

but you didn't call us.

[laughing]

PROTESTORS: What do we want?

Affirmative action!

When do we want it?

Now!

What do we want?

Affirmative action!

When do we want it?

NEWSCASTER: What is

expected to be a landmark case

before the Supreme Court

to be argued this April.

NEWSCASTER #2: The plaintiffs in

this case are three white applicants

to the University of

Michigan who were rejected,

they say, because of their race.

[♪]

CLARENCE: "Racial discrimination

is not a permissible solution...

that can only weaken

the principle of equality

embodied in the

Declaration of Independence

and the Equal

Protection Clause."

Show me in the Constitution

where you get a right

to separate citizens

based on race.

I think what we've

become comfortable with is

thinking that there is

some good discrimination

and some bad discrimination.

And if you look in the

briefs in the race cases, uh,

the segregationists,

the people who thought

you should have a separate system,

they,

they said that they thought

it was good for both races.

So they thought it was

good discrimination.

[♪]

You have to really be

careful not to supplant

what is there, what was,

uh, rightfully done,

simply because you

don't think it's a great rule.

A bad policy can

be constitutional.

A good policy can

be unconstitutional.

So that's why we

start with the text.

GINNI THOMAS: Justice Scalia called

Clarence a "blood thirsty originalist."

He took that as a compliment.

CLARENCE: The framers

understood natural law,

and natural rights

a certain way,

and it is underpinning

of our Declaration,

which then becomes the

foundation for the Constitution.

They start with the

rights of the individual.

And where do those

rights come from?

They come from God,

they're transcendent.

And you give up

some of those rights

in order to be governed.

They're inalienable rights.

And now you give up

only so many as necessary

to be governed by your consent.

And hence limited government,

enumerated powers,

separation of powers,

federalism, judicial review.

It all makes sense.

[♪]

GINNI THOMAS: One of Clarence's

biggest loves is when he can get away

from Washington DC and be

on the road in his motor home.

[♪]

CLARENCE: You know, I don't

have any problem with going to Europe,

but I prefer the United States.

And I prefer seeing the regular

parts of the United States.

I prefer going across

the rural areas.

I prefer the RV parks,

and I prefer the Walmart parking

lots to the beaches

and things like that.

There's something,

normal to me about it.

I come from regular stock,

and I prefer that.

I prefer being around that.

GINNI THOMAS: I think he has

a natural capacity to hear more

than most of us do

from regular people.

Clarence's grandfather

is the perfect example

of an anchor in his life

that was not seen by

the elites as having value

because he had

such poor education.

He was illiterate.

But for Clarence,

the wisdom from that man

and the experience,

and the way he lived his life,

did make him the

greatest man in his life.

GINNI THOMAS: I think he

hopes that when he gets to heaven,

that his grandfather would say,

"Well done."

CLARENCE: I keep a bust of my

grandfather that my wife had made,

over me and I've done

since I've been at the court.

He was uncorrupted

by modern thinking.

When you can't read and write,

you take in life as it is.

You did things a certain way.

You planted corn a certain way,

you fed the hogs a certain way,

you pulled the fence

line a certain way,

you plowed the field a certain

way,

and it always had to be the

right way.

I want to be able to say to him

I lived up to my oath

and did my best.

[♪]

To do it the way you did the

field, properly,

to do the law the right way,

to conduct yourself

the right way.

I want to be able to say that

it's a job well done.

[♪]

And to be a part

of this, this country,

and this Constitution,

there is a sense of fulfillment

that you get to write,

and to defend the very thing

that protects our liberties.

[vocalizing]

[♪]

[♪]

[♪]