Supreme discomfort: the divided soul of Clarence Thomas

SUPREME DISCOMFORT: The Divided Soul of Clarence Thomas paints a complex portrait of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, perhaps the most powerful and misunderstood African-American in public life. The new book, by Washington Post reporters Kevin Merida and Michael A. Fletcher, traces Thomas' life from his poor childhood in coastal Georgia to his experiences in a Catholic seminary and the College of the Holy Cross to his law school years at Yale and his rise through the Republican political establishment, all the way to the Supreme Court. An adapted excerpt follows:

It was 8 a.m. when the phone rang in his Westin Hotel room. Done with breakfast, Associate Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas still had an entire morning to spend before his luncheon speech to the Savannah Bar Association. Lester Johnson was on the line.

"What're you doing?" Johnson asked.

"I'm just coolin' out," Thomas replied.

Johnson, an old friend and prominent local attorney, figured Thomas would enjoy a quick tour of the renovated Bull Street Library, the main branch in Savannah's Victorian district that wouldn't admit Blacks until 1963. When Thomas was growing up here, he spent most of his free time in the Carnegie Library, on the Black side of town. It wasn't until he was a teenager that integration gave him access to the Big Library, as he called it, but once access was granted, Thomas became a Bull Street regular.

Thomas notified his security detail and met Johnson in front of the library. Not wanting to monopolize Thomas' time, Johnson had promised the tour would take just 15 minutes. But once Thomas planted himself among the historical texts and old city maps, once he started reminiscing about "story hour," once he started introducing himself to the genealogy specialist and the security guard and posing for photos, it was hard to drag him away. He stayed for two whole hours.

He spotted a group of Black fourth- and-fifth graders from a private academy and, hoping to inspire them, sidled over. This was vintage Thomas, always drawn to the children in a room. When he was a kid, Thomas told them, the library was how he expanded his world, using books to visit places that were beyond his reach. The kids, however, were having too much fun on the computers to pay close attention to this VIP they didn't recognize. Johnson seemed more bothered than Thomas by this lack of recognition. He had a library staffer make 12 copies of Thomas' bio and instructed the students to tell their parents whom they had met--not only the sole African-American on the nation's highest court, but Savannah's most famous son.

Johnson, a soft-spoken man of slight build, had long admired Thomas, who is five years his senior. Both came up through the Catholic school system in Savannah during Jim Crow's reign. Thomas, in fact, spent little time in public education, snatched out by his grandfather who figured he'd get superior, disciplined instruction from the Franciscan nuns and perhaps one day become the city's first Black priest. Thomas and Johnson both ended up at Holy Cross College in Massachusetts, though not at the same time, and pursued legal careers. While at Yale Law School, Thomas became some thing of a mentor to Johnson, imploring him to avoid easy courses in undergrad and prepare for life's later competitions. ("Let them White boys go out and get drunk. You need to be staying on campus and hitting those books.")

Upstairs, the Bull Street Library tour continued. Thomas and a childhood acquaintance, W. John Mitchell, were giddily recalling youthful pastimes such as "pluffer," a game that involved shooting chinaberries at each other through a tube of cane. But the good cheer was interrupted when Abigail Jordan, a retired educator and local Black activist who just happened to be in the library, eyed Thomas.

There was something in the spectacle of the burly justice, with his booming laugh and broad grin, yukking it up with his friends, that compelled Jordan to move toward the group, close enough, as she would later say, "to be kissed" by Lester Johnson. She stood before them, glared and abruptly said: "I just wanted to see what a group of Uncle Toms look like." Then she walked away.

For nearly 16 years, people have been searching for clues to unravel the mystery that is Clarence Thomas. It has been that long since he was confirmed to the high court by the smallest margin--four votes--in more than a century. His bitter confirmation battle became a kind of cultural touchstone, a transforming political event that pulsated long after it was over. It tarnished the image of the White male-dominated U.S. Senate, inspired the successful campaigns of women running for Congress, reignited the uneasy debate about Black male-female relationships, and added kerosene to the partisan wars over judicial nominations. Those wars have seen no truces.

The Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas drama remains a subject of debate and puzzlement, even today. Time has only hardened loyalties. And no definitive truth about what happened between them has emerged since the hearings, though there has been no shortage of speculation and prose on the subject. Some will always believe Hill's account of lewd behavior and unwelcome sexual advances by Thomas; others will always believe Thomas was the victim of a smear campaign that permanently damaged his reputation.