Thomas describes growing up in extreme poverty in Pinpoint, Georgia in the 1940s-50s, living in a shack with no running water or electricity. He meets his father for the first time at age 9, who promises but fails to send him a gift. Thomas details his rise from poverty to become the chairman of the EEOC and then a Supreme Court justice. However, he faces controversy when accused of sexual harassment by Anita Hill during his 1991 confirmation hearings. While some view Hill as truthful, Thomas believes the hearings were a "high-tech lynching" and writes his memoir partly to purge the lingering pain of that experience.

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The Purging of Justice Thomas
[By James Kilpatrick]
Two questions arise: Why did Anita Hill do what she did then? And why, with the publication of “My Grandfather’s Son,” has Clarence Thomas done what he
has done now?
William Congreve answered the first In the 1950s, Pinpoint, 10 miles southeast Committee had listened to her lies. He was
question three centuries ago: Hell hath no of Savannah, “was too small to be properly fed up:
fury like a woman scorned. called a town. No more than a hundred
people lived there, most of whom were “This is a circus. It is a national disgrace,
The second question is tougher. An easy related to me in one way or another. Their and from my standpoint, as a black
answer is that Justice Thomas did it for lives were a daily struggle for the barest American, it is a high-tech lynching for
money — that is, that he wrote this painful of essentials, food, clothing and shelter. uppity blacks who in any way deign to think
memoir mainly for the $1.5 million advance Doctors were few and far between, so when for themselves, to do for themselves, to
he received from HarperCollins. A better you got sick, you stayed that way, and often have different ideas, and it is a message
answer lies in the theory of catharsis, “a you died of it. that, unless you kowtow to an old order,
purification of the emotions that brings this is what will happen to you, you will be
about spiritual renewal or release from “The house in which I was born was a lynched.”
tension.” Sixteen years after his agonizing shanty with no bathroom and no electricity
Permit me a personal word: My beloved
confirmation to the Supreme Court, Thomas except for a single light in the living room.
wife, Hearst columnist Marianne Means,
had to pull this festering splinter: He would Kerosene lamps lit the rest of the house. In
has a very different view of Justice Thomas
write the pain out of his system. Now! Done! the wintertime was plugged up the cracks
and his book. Last week she characterized
But pus is pretty only to the patient. and holes in the walls with old newspapers.
his memoir as 289 pages of whine. In her
Water came from a nearby faucet. We
biased view, Anita Hill was a Teller of Truth,
In an engrossing account of his boyhood carried it through the woods in old lard
a veritable Joan of Arc.
in Pinpoint, Ga., Thomas starts with his buckets ...”
hardscrabble beginnings:
In my own biased view, Hill was a vengeful
Readers who skip the middle chapters
woman who was determined to get back
“I was 9 years old when I met my father. of Thomas’ memoir do themselves a
at a man who clearly thought she was less
His name was M.C. Thomas, and my birth disservice. Eventually his race would
than wonderful. She has never been able
certificate describes him as a ‘laborer.’” become the decisive factor in his career,
to explain why she followed Thomas — this
but along the way he provided evidence of
beast, this awful person, this tawdry, hyper-
The meeting took place at a housing project real guts and modest talent. Then came
sexed, utterly detestable creep! — from one
where the father was visiting. Thomas and his rise to become chairman of the Equal
job to another. But let it go. To each his own
his younger brother arrived on schedule: Employment Opportunity Commission
catharsis.
(EEOC), his elevation to a circuit judgeship,
“’I am your daddy,’ he told us in a firm, and finally in the summer of 1991 his I wish Thomas had not published this book.
shameless voice that carried no hint of nomination to the Supreme Court of the Now can I go to sleep?
remorse for his inexplicable absence from United States.
our lives. He said nothing about loving (Letters to Mr. Kilpatrick should be sent by
or missing us, and we didn’t say much in If Thomas had ended his memoir at that e-mail to kilpatjj@aol.com.)
return — it was as though we were meeting point he would have had a good book but
a total stranger — but he treated us politely no bonanza. For his own integrity — and COPYRIGHT 2005 UNIVERSAL PRESS
enough, and even promised to send us a to earn that fat advance — he had publicly SYNDICATE
pair of Elgin watches with flexible bands, to squeeze the festering boil. Without the
This feature may not be reproduced or
which were popular at the time. Though we final 50 pages there would have been no
distributed electronically, in print or
watched the mail every day, the watches marketable book. So, Anita Hill had defamed
otherwise without the written permission of
never came.” him. Members of the Senate Judiciary
uclick and Universal Press Syndicate.
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