Clarence Thomas: The Justice Nobody Knows

60 Minutes interview transcript
Rush Limbaugh

After 16 years of relative silence on the subject, Justice Clarence Thomas is publishing an autobiography that addresses what he has called a "high-tech" lynching -- the confirmation process that followed his nomination to the Supreme Court by President George Herbert Walker Bush.

ABC Supreme Court correspondent Jan Crawford Greenburg conducted a series of wide-ranging interviews with Justice Thomas and his wife, Virginia.

Click on the links below for Greenburg's in-depth report on her interviews with the justice.

Part I: My Grandfather's Son
"These people who claim to be progressive … have been far more vicious to me than any southerner," Thomas says, "and it is purely ideological."

Part II: The Integrator
He is part of another great generation -- a generation of blacks who integrated a racist society, whose entry into those hostile white worlds was, in many ways, no less courageous than the bravery of the men who stormed the beaches of Normandy.

Part III: Going North
"I didn't have this view that I was going to go North. Ideologically, I wanted to be like the Northern kids who were no longer submissive. They were fighting back on the racial issues," Thomas says. "But I didn't want to go North. That was not a part of it. But it was the only option I had after I got kicked out of the house."

Part IV: A Conservative in Washington -- and the Personal Struggles
"I drank more heavily than ever before, and though I was careful not to let my drinking interfere with my work, I knew I was on the road to trouble," Thomas writes.

Photos

PHOTOS: A Journey Through the Life of Clarence Thomas

Part V: Finding Peace
"I sometimes wonder how I got through the summer of 1983 without falling apart," he wrote. "I was lower than a snake's belly ... and the mad thought of taking my own life fleetingly crossed my mind."

Part VI: Becoming a Judge
"That's a job for old people," Thomas wrote that he replied. "I can't see myself spending the rest of my life as a judge."

Part VII: 'Traitorous' Adversaries: Anita Hill and the Senate Democrats
Thomas wrote that he paced around the house "like a caged animal," not knowing what to expect but fearing the worst.

Part VIII: Rebuilding a Life
"Thanks to God's direct intervention, I had risen phoenix-like from the ashes of self-pity and despair, and though my wounds were still raw, I trusted that in time they, too, would heal," he wrote.

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PHOTOS: Revisiting the Clarence Thomas Confirmation Hearings

Video Highlights

Click on the links below to watch highlights from Greenburg's series of interviews with Thomas.

TOPIC: Justice Clarence Thomas shares his inner thoughts on the 1991 confirmation hearings, calling the experience "the most inhuman thing that has ever happened to me."

TOPIC: Justice Clarence Thomas talks about his methodology on the Supreme Court and why he asks so few questions during oral arguments.

TOPIC: Justice Clarence Thomas' wife, Virginia Thomas, describes her reaction to Anita Hill's charges against her husband and says she's still holding out hope for an apology.

TOPIC: Justice Clarence Thomas describes his upbringing by his maternal grandfather, who was the inspiration behind the title of his book "My Grandfather's Son."