My Grandfather's Son

Provocative, inspiring, and unflinchingly honest, My Grandfather’s Son is the story of one of America’s most remarkable and controversial leaders, Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas. Thomas was born in rural Georgia on June 23, 1948, into a life marked by poverty and hunger. His parents divorced when Thomas was still a baby, leaving his mother to raise him and his brother and sister on the ten dollars a week she earned as a maid. At age seven, Thomas and his brother were sent to live with his mother’s father, Myers Anderson, and her stepmother in their Savannah home. It was a move that would forever change Thomas’s life. His grandfather, whom he called “Daddy,” was a man with a strict work ethic, trying to raise a family in the years of Jim Crow. Thomas witnessed his grandparents’ steadfastness despite injustices, their hopefulness despite bigotry, and their deep love for their country. His own quiet ambition would propel him to Holy Cross and Yale Law School, and eventually—despite a bitter, highly contested public confirmation—to the highest court in the land. In this candid and deeply moving memoir, Clarence Thomas recounts his astonishing journey for the first time, and pays homage to the man who made it possible. Illustrated with many photos.