Judging Thomas: The Life and Times of Clarence Thomas

Clarence Thomas, the youngest and most controversial member of the Supreme Court, could become the longest-serving justice in history, influencing American law for decades to come. Who is this enigmatic man?
And what does he believe in?

Judging Thomas tells the remarkable story of Clarence Thomas's improbable journey from hardscrabble beginnings in the segregated South to the loftiest court in the land. Driven by his grandfather's relentless demand that he counter racial injustice with hard work and accomplishment, Thomas has waged an often lonely fifty-year campaign to forge his own American identity against others' expectations of who he should be.

With objectivity and balance, author Ken Foskett chronicles Thomas's contempt for upper-crust blacks who snubbed his uneducated, working-class roots; his flirtation with the priesthood and later Black Power; the resentment that fueled his opposition to affirmative action; the conservative beliefs that ultimately led him to the Supreme Court steps; and the inner resilience that propelled him through the doors.

Based on interviews with Thomas himself, fellow justices, family members, and hundreds of friends and associates, Judging Thomas skillfully unravels perhaps the most complex, controversial,and powerful public figure in America today. Foskett reveals that beneath the silent, often brooding exterior is a man of depth, empathy, and wit, but one still deeply scarred by his humiliating Supreme Court confirmation.

Judging Thomas is a seminal biography of the youngest and most recognizable justice, and the man who may succeed William H. Rehnquist to become the nation's first black chief justice.