A friend of mine who passed away some nine years ago was an active member of the NBA. And many of you may remember him, Gil Hardy. [Applause.] Probab… - Clarence Thomas

I could tell...that my friends were doing their best to get across the message that I wasn't Frankenstein's monster but a perfectly normal human being. What they didn't understand was that my opponents didn't care who I was. Even if they had wanted to know the truth about me, it would have made no sense to them, since I refused to stay in my place and play by their rules and was too complicated to fit into their simple-minded, stereotypical pigeonholes. In any case, I couldn't be defeated without first being caricatured and dehumanized...[T]hey couldn't allow my life to be seen as the story of an ordinary person who, like most people, had worked out his problems step by unsure step. That would have been too honest-and too human.

As a child in the deep South, I’d grown-up fearing the lynch mobs...as an adult, I was starting to wonder if I’ve been afraid of the wrong white people all along. My worst fears had come to pass not in Georgia but in Washington DC where I was being pursued not by bigots in white robes but by left wing zealots draped in flowing sanctimony.

The inverse relationship between the bold promises and the effectiveness of the proposed solutions, the frustrations with the so-called system, the subtle and not-so-subtle bigotry and animus towards members of my race made radicals and nationalists of many of us. Yes, I understand the reasons why this is attractive. But it is precisely this -- in its historic form, not its present-day diluted form that I have rejected. My question was whether as an individual I truly believed that I was the equal of individuals who were white. This I had answered with a resounding "yes" in 1964 during my sophomore year in the seminary. And that answer continues to be yes. Accordingly, my words and my deeds are consistent with this answer.