When i was six, i wandered streets by myself. You were hungry. And didnt know some place in my life the roads let off. Id gone to seminary. Id gone to all white schools. I was never going to be a part of that world. I was never going to be white. The problem is i can never go back completely to the world i came from. We were for anybody whos kind of in your face. I saw what i had become lashing out at every single thing. As god if you take anger out of my heart, ill never hate again. And that was the beginning of the slow return to where i started. My candidate consonant attack youre not really black because youre not doing what we expect black people to do that. I will nominate judge Clarence Thomas to serve as associate justice of the United StatesSupreme Court. Thats when oh heck broke loose judge thomas began to use work situations to discuss sex. We know exactly whats going on here. This is the wrong black guy. He has to be destroyed you really didnt matter what mattered was what they wanted so youd still like to serve on the Supreme Court. Id rather die than withdraw from the process. That wouldnt be able to say my lived up to my oath and did my best. So michael pack, what were we just watching there . Well, that was the trailer to our film called created equal Clarence Thomas and his own words. The same title is the book. Its a twohour film. It was released in january of 2020 was in a bunch of theaters 110 theaters and then covid cut. Its the actual release short. It was then broadcast nationally on pbs in may did very well on pbs and then it was released digitally and its Still Available digitally. Its on amazon and viewers can go to our website manifold productions. Com with a full list of how to watch it. And that film was based on a very long interview with Clarence Thomas. I think you could see that. He looked right at the camera and tells his story in his own words from his beginnings to today. So i interviewed him for over 24 hours over four month period and jenny for five or six hours and theyre the only interviews in the film. And thats why its Clarence Thomas in his own words, but it was a 25hour interview and its only two hour film. So my coauth book mark, paelletta, a longterm friend of the thomases had the idea that we should take some of that material and put it in a book and the book is 95 new material, but it follows the same pattern as the film. It tells his life story from the beginnings to the to the court and on to today. So i think this is a important moment for people to understand Justice Thomas, whereas ideas come from and who he is as a person. What was it like trying to convince the Supreme Court justice to sit down for 24 hours of interview. It was not easy and it is the longest interview ever granted of filmmaker by any Supreme Court justice. Let alone one thats been reluctant to be interviewed. But the film evolved and at each stage, i was very honest and open with him and we came to we were originally planning to do a traditional documentary interview 15 people from all periods in his life and all points of view, but i quickly realized that his voice would be lost. And he was the best teller of his own. Own story in this way. He tells you what he thinks and you can accept it or reject it and this is why i think pbs was enthusiastic. It doesnt say this is the truth. It says this is the way class thomas saw his life and if you want to understand him and understand his recent Supreme Court rulings, its worth understanding who he is and where he comes from so he followed the evolution and and he committed to doing the film and one of the things about Justice Thomas is hes very stubborn. He agrees to do something. He sticks with it and in spite of temptations, maybe to not stick with it. He did stick with it and i should say had no editorial control. So it was a lot of trust in a filmmaker and he didnt in fact see it until it was broadcast on pbs. You describe him. You are mark payleta your coauthor describe him as the greatest Supreme Court justice of all time. Why is that . Well, that would be mark. I do not consider myself an expert in the Supreme Court. Im a documentary filmmaker. I think is a i think it is surely true that he is now one of the most that he is a Strong Influence on this Supreme Court many people call it the thomas court. Its obviously really the roberts court, but i think he is perhaps the strongest influence at the moment and thats why its important for people to read the book and see the movie and understand him whatever their politics and we really wanted the film to be on pbs because we wanted a broad swath of america to see him and understand him and we want that for the book as well. Themes that came out in the book in the interview. Is that Justice Thomas likes to take the longer view . I think thats true. I mean we call them created equal because his life is really based on the way. He sees the declaration of independence those Core Principles and how they realized in the constitution. You can understand it if you follow his life story. I mean, you know. I think yourself, but maybe not all your listeners now. Hes born in pinpoints, georgia a gullah speaking area off the coast of georgia. So english isnt really his first language and in rural poverty his father leaves before he can remember his mother really is raising him when hes about six or seven years old. They moved to savannah and he as he said he went from rural poverty to urban squalor and in savannah his mothers working as a maid. He she doesnt have enough money to give them enough food. Theyre hungry. Theyre cold in the winter. She brings them to school and he just leaves school and wanders the streets and after two years she realizes she cant take care of those kids brings them to her father his grandfather to raise and thats where his life turns around. The first thing is grandfather says is the vacation is over and hes thinking what hand is brother thinking what vacation weve just been entire poverty. But he gives them hard work. They got to work on his. Theres oil truck right after school. They got to go to School Every Day gives them discipline and hard work and though he himself is functionally illiterate had less than a third grade education insists upon sending them to Catholic School and lets not forget. This is the segregated south so its an all black school run by these irish nuns who also reflect those values discipline hard work and our real strong curriculum. Justice thomas thrives in that environment and a lot of people dont know he decided he wanted to be a priest and he enrolled in a seminary and he went to the seminary and his grandfather was proud of him, but it was a big financial commitment. And then after two years in the seminary he experienced the seminaries. I should say were all white seminaries and he was one of the first groups integrating them and there he started to experience some racism and it reached a peak in 1968 when theyre watching tv when Martin Luther king jr. Shot and one of the white seminarians says hope that smb dies and for Clarence Thomas that capped it off. He felt the church wasnt doing enough for civil rights that his grandfather was wrong about everything and he became in his own words and angry black man and became radicalized and decided i didnt want to be priest and his grandfather said well if you can make your own decisions, youre on your own and kicked him out of the house. So the only father he ever knew really kicks him out. Hes on his own. He has to go wherever he has a scholarship holy cross in massachusetts and there he continues to be a radical. He helped start the black Student Union engages in a walkout invite black panthers to come and speak. You may remember this period i do and the next period of his life is sort of working through that and coming back to his grandfathers values. And that reaches a one of the key moments in that is money goes to an antiwar demonstration in cambridge, massachusetts, and it turns into a riot and he gets swept up in the riot. You know, he there they go run they get liquor from a liquor store ahead of time and hes just caught up in the mob mentality and he hates what hes become and even though hes fell away from the church when he gets back to holy cross in the middle of the night. He kneels in front of the chapel it says of god will take anger out of my heart. You know, i will change and thats his beginning of his coming back to his grandfather and his nuns values as he sees them. And that plays out in over your law school and his early years working for for then attorney general danforth in missouri. And finally he ends up work voting for and working for reagan and thats his journey back and we tell that story and its a complicated story in both in the book and in the film, but then once he becomes a public conservative black man. He is attacked by the media and he has his battles with the left and that reaches a peak or a first peak at least it is very contentious confirmation hearing and then on through today on the court and we tell that story and its dramatic story in the film in the book or i should say. We let Clarence Thomas tell that story. And you refer to that in the book as the radical years. Yeah, but you also. Bring up the theme or he brings up the theme. Of circumstances controlling you rather than you controlling circumstances. And thats something to be avoided he says. Well in fact you know, he i think what he i think he would say that. He was blessed by having this core upbringing by his grandfather and these nuns. I mean, he would not have been who he is without them and he is constantly referencing how important they are to him. I mean we end the film with us with his talking about his grandfather in the book picture things and with the pictures of the two of them and i think he feels that he was blessed in his circumstances other people might see a differently he was born in dire poverty. He had to grow up under segregation. He had many hardships in reversals, but i think he feels in a way blessed as well as challenged and i think one of the impressive things in Justice Thomass life is this resilience in coming back and the face of hardship and feeling basically blessed. And thats i think of inspiring thing to all of us, whatever our politics whats the role of jimmy thomas in his life . Well we interviewed jenny, you know she much for a less time than Justice Thomas and she really helps tell his story. But he talks about what he met her and marrying her and what she means to him and she calls her a gift from god and i think they are very close. And i i think that the confirmation battle the very kind of contentious confirmation battle. They were not married that long pulled them together to have to go through Something Like that together and i think that that them one as she does he in the book address his first marriage to kathy ambush and his son jamal and your chest is in a little bit. I think you can see in the film. We didnt put this so much in the buck that i pressed him, and he did not want to speak much about it. So hes a little about it. We tell about it, but he doesnt speak much. I think its interesting that as a result of that marriage. They had a child a son and she wanted him to raise the child and he raised his son as a Single Person with not a huge salary in washington in the 80s a very tough thing to do. Is this your first book . Its my first buck. Im really a filmmaker and weve made ive been making films for decades. Weve made over 14 15 films almost all of them. Ive been broadcast nationally on pbs which were grateful for. This is the first one weve chosen to turn into a film because we had this resource and actually mark pail out on my coauthor was the originator of that idea. I think of myself as a filmmaker rather than an author, but i have to say theres something satisfying about seeing your name in a book, you know, an actual physical book not just an ebook. I mean there is an ebook, but but theres something about seeing your name in a book. That is really great. Michael pack is the coauthor of created equal Clarence Thomas in his own words, and hes president of manifold productions inc. We appreciate for being on book tv. Thank you very m all right flas. Thanks for joining us today. Thank you, juan. Let me begin by giving you the opportunity to tell people about the book the thesis. Well my thesis is that the Mainstream Media is one of the biggest causes of the polarization in America Today that the number of stories they put on the air that were wrong. Most of all of which were to get donald trump and to hurt republicans or conservatives the number of stories that they suppressed which would have hurt joe biden particularly during the campaign has added up to a