Clarence Thomas (born June 23, 1948) is an American lawyer and jurist who has served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States since 1991. Nominated by President George H. W. Bush to succeed Thurgood Marshall, Thomas is the second African American to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court and the second longest-serving U.S. Supreme Court justice in history.

Thomas was born in Pin Point, Georgia. After his father abandoned the family, he was raised by his grandfather in a poor Gullah community near Savannah, Georgia. A devout Catholic, Thomas initially intended to be a priest in the Catholic Church but withdrew from seminary after experiencing racism. He graduated with honors from the College of the Holy Cross in 1971 and earned his Juris Doctor in 1974 from Yale Law School. After law school, he became an assistant attorney general in Missouri, a legislative assistant to U.S. senator John Danforth in 1979, and Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education in 1981. President Ronald Reaganappointed Thomas as Chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission(EEOC) in 1982.