New Documentary - “Clarence Thomas in His Own Words”

A new documentary about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas will be in theaters next February and broadcast on PBS in May. “Created Equal - Clarence Thomas in His Own Words” is the name of the film in which Thomas tells his life story looking directly at the camera.

Thomas was born into grinding poverty in a Gullah-speaking part of Georgia.  He went to Catholic school and entered the seminary to become a priest.  He left after becoming disillusioned with what he considered to be the Catholic Church’s lack of support for civil rights.  At this point in his life, he was a radical Black Power leftist, angry at everything and everybody.  But, over time, he came to view affirmative action as condescending and busing as divisive and ineffective.

His transformation complete, he went to work in the Reagan administration then was appointed to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.  He was nominated for the high court in 1991.  Who could forget the pitched battle at his confirmation hearings and Anita Hill’s shocking allegations that Thomas had sexually harassed her?  After relentless brow-beating, Thomas accused Democratic senators at the hearing of conducting “a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas.”  Most of the public did not believe Anita Hill and Thomas was confirmed.

Justice Thomas has served on the Supreme Court ever since where he is known as an originalist and a reliable conservative vote. He believes judges should interpret the law, not make it up. 

The trailer for the new documentary is online. If you can’t wait for the movie, you might try his memoir My Grandfather’s Son which hit number one on the New York Times bestsellers list in 2007.