Why I Think of Clarence Thomas and the Nuns Who Inspired Him Each MLK Day
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is hailed by many for his inspiring life. But through it all, good or bad, Thomas stays focused on the important things in life.
He never has forgotten those who helped him along the way. For many years on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the justice would visit his eighth-grade teacher, Sister Mary Virgilius Reidy, and dozens of her fellow nuns, in a retirement convent in New Jersey.
The Franciscan nuns changed his life, and Thomas always has been grateful for their love and support. The nuns held their students to the highest academic standards, and did not allow them to make any excuse, even though these students lived under state-enforced discrimination.
As Thomas recounts in “Created Equal”: “You knew they loved you. When you think somebody loves you and deeply cares about your interests, somehow they can get you to do hard things.”
Thanks Kewl2. Great story about a great man.
Good find, Kewl2.
A humble giant among us.