Justice Thomas Discusses Fatherhood, Family and Faith

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Conservative Book Club Editor Elizabeth Kantor recently interviewed Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas about his new book. My Grandfather's Son. Justice Thomas spoke frankly about the reasons his grandfather had to be as tough as he was on the two boys he was raising in the segregated South and also about new challenges faced by parents today. He talked about how parents pass their religious faith along to their children. And he told why he decided to write such a painfully honest book-and explained his attitude toward critics who might try to use his honesty against him.

I got to read your book in manuscript months ago, under a promise of secrecy. And it's just been killing me, because it was such a great book that I wanted to tell everybody all these stories about your grandfather.

JUSTICE CLARENCE THOMAS: Oh, he's a great man.

Apparently, he was an amazing person.... The first question I wanted to ask was, essentially, about the hardships that you went through.... It really comes through in the book that there's a way in which the fact that your life was hard made it possible for you to accomplish things that you might not have been able to accomplish otherwise.

THOMAS: You know. I have often said to my wife and to others-and certainly to young kids-that I was fortunate to have had misfortune in my life. One of the things it does for you is that it helps you build the kind of character traits you need to go on with your life. For example, you have a challenge that really seems almost impossible. But then you work through that challenge, and it sort of does something to you-it teaches you how to stick to things, it teaches you persistence, it teaches you patience. And if you don't achieve what you want, or if something doesn't happen and you have disappointment, you learn that you don't always get what you want. That's just a part of life. So I think misfortune-when you survive it, and when you learn from it, and grow from it-actually turns out to be a benefit.

Now, part of what you lived through was segregation and poverty, terrible things ... but part of what you lived through was that your grandfather was really tough on you. The stuff about how he really didn't let you play with the bigger kids, he had you working hard all summer, he didn't let you go out for sports. Today, if somebody is raising a kid like that, people would say, "He's very controlling. Why is he so hard on those children?" Did he have to be that tough on you?

THOMAS: Well, you know, none of us would ever know that. How would we know? It was what it was. There were people who criticized him for being so hard on us, even in that time. And the thing that I dislike is when people say he was harsh. He was not harsh. But I want you to think a second about his life.

He never had a father. His mother died when he was nine. He went to live with his grandmother, who was a freed slave. She died when he was 12 or 13. He then goes to live with an uncle, who already has a house full of kids. He's just another mouth to feed. As he always said, and I know I mentioned in the book, he was handed from pillar to post. And so he had a hard life. He had to make his way in the world, and by the time he was a grown man, he could not write his name. And he eventually learned how to sign his name and learned how to read a little bit-enough that he could barely function. And so think of the life that he had and how he had to make his way through the world. So it was a hard life, and in turn, he had to be a hard man.

But he was never harsh. And what was he leaving his grandsons or his boys, as he always called us? He saw a world that was very difficult on a lot of levels-race, or just a part of human existence. He saw the need for education, the need to learn how to work, the need to have certain character traits that he learned from "Mother Wit." as he always said. And so what's the honest thing to do with two boys you care about-you love-when you know that the life ahead of them is going to be full of these challenges?

You teach them how to deal with it. And so I think that, in his own way, he was saying, "I am going to devote myself to teaching these boys." And all these other things-"this foolishness." as he called it, playing sports, playing around, etc.-have to go by the wayside.

Now I want you to contrast that-if you look in the book, you'll see that with my own son and his great-grandkids, he was a total pushover. He did whatever they wanted him to do. And how does he differentiate? He said that my son Jamal is "not my responsibility." He said he'd already raised us. Jamal was my responsibility, not his. He could have fun with Jamal. But the way that he had to express his love for us was to discharge his obligation to raise us and prepare us for a life full of challenges. And so in his world, the way he was raised, what he saw ahead of him, yes, he had to do what he did.

And you know what? My brother and I-and my brother and I had many conversations about this-we were both grateful. And our bottom line was: How do you argue with success?