I distinctly remember when Clarence Thomas was nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1991. I also distinctly remember helping to organize protests against his hotly contested nomination in front of the 625 N. Euclid building where he worked at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission office. I distinctly remember watching Thomas’ confirmation hearings on TV, along with millions of others, as Anita Hill delivered her courageous and biting testimony accusing Thomas of sexual harassment.
While there were a few who discounted his track record at the time and hoped that Thomas would follow in the steps of Thurgood Marshall, the rest of us knew he would be bad news as a justice. He didn’t disprove us, and his term on the highest court in the land has been both embarrassing and disastrous.
Former Congressman William L. Clay has seen the work of Supreme Justice Thomas close up and personal. His latest book is entitled “Clarence Thomas: A Black Knight in Tainted Armor,” and in this case you really can judge a book by its cover. Clay is unrelenting in his expose of Thomas’ detriment to civil rights. He calls Thomas’ confirmation an “ideological hijacking of the Supreme Court.”
Republican Senator William “Jack” Danforth and President George H.W. Bush worked hard to make a place for Thomas on the bench. Clay shares with readers exchanges between Danforth and himself after the senator assailed the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) on the floor of the Senate, as well as in letters. Ironically, Danforth accused the CBC of “reckless attacks” on Thomas and of fostering divisiveness on the issue of race.
There was division within the race regarding the confirmation of Clarence Thomas, as civil rights groups drew their lines in the sand. Prominent local attorneys Margaret Bush Wilson and Frankie Freeman threw their support to Thomas. The NAACP was against the confirmation, but several locals – such as the East St. Louis and Compton, California chapters – broke rank to support Thomas.
Clay first discusses the first African-American nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court, Thurgood Marshall. You may be saying Thomas couldn’t light a candle to Marshall. That’s exactly the point. Clay had to lay out the legacy of Marshall so that readers could easily grasp Thomas’ departure from a human rights agenda in this country.
It’s easy to take aim at Thomas and caricaturize him, starting with the nickname bestowed on him early on, “Uncle Tom” Clarence, and to focus on his self-loathing as an African American. Instead, Clay’s book examines the substantive damage that Thomas has done both as a justice and as a historical figure.
One of the biggest criticisms of Thomas has been his silence on the bench. He goes years without uttering a single word, rarely asking a single question to deepen his understanding of the arguments being presented. During a particular period of time, 250 cases came before the court with Thomas asking nary a question. In the presidential election debacle of 2000, other justices asked over 100 questions in an unprecedented case that would ultimately decide who held the U.S. presidency.
It’s clear from references to Thomas as the “Supreme Knightmare” or the “Water Boy for Conservative Causes” that the former Congressman has neither love nor respect for the justice. However, Clay goes the distance in documenting the disservice Thomas continues to do to the rights of black people, women, immigrants and workers. Their pleas for justice end up before jurists who are supposed to shed their ideological and personal biases to render judgments rooted in law, fairness and ethics.
Clay makes it clear that Thomas has been a pitiful placeholder at a powerful table and has consciously decided to be an obstruction to justice.
Clay will discuss and sign his book “Clarence Thomas: A Knight in Tainted Armor” at 7 p.m. Thursday, January 15 in the Carnegie Room of the Central Library, 1301 Olive St., and again at
2 p.m. Friday, January 16 in the William L. Clay Sr. Early Childhood Development/Parenting Education Center at Harris-Stowe State University, 10 N. Compton.