“But for the Grace of God, There Go I”: Justice Thomas and the Little Guy
During his confirmation hearings, then-Judge Clarence Thomas described watching, through his chamber’s window, as shackled prisoners were led into the federal courthouse. “I say to myself almost every day,” he introspectively reflected, “‘But for the Grace of God there go I.’” In the intervening years, more than one commentator has accused Justice Thomas of reneging on his implicit promise—embedded in his self-identification with the prisoners—to look out for the little guy. According to these critics, Thomas has turned out to be anything but empathetic to the plight of the downtrodden. This view—that Thomas exhibits a disregard, even contempt, for the difficulties facing the least fortunate among us—pervades the popular imagination. He has been accused of forgetting his humble roots, of turning his back on his own people, and even of being a self-hating black man.
These criticisms reflect a profound misunderstanding of Justice Thomas and his jurisprudence. There is a reason why Thomas, upon his nomination to the Supreme Court, first thanked his grandparents and the Franciscan nuns who educated him in Savannah’s segregated Catholic schools: he sincerely believed that, without their intervention—or, perhaps more accurately, without God’s intervention through them—he might well have arrived at a federal court house via a prison transport bus rather than the Yale Law School and the Senate Judiciary Committee. And, contrary to the view of critics who believe that his emphasis on his humble roots in the months following his nomination reflected a contrived “Pinpoint Strategy” to secure confirmation, he continues to believe it. He understands the role that Providence played in his remarkable rise from the sewage-filled streets of a Savannah ghetto to the highest court in the land.
