“In my humble opinion, those who engage in debates of consequence, and who challenge accepted wisdom, should expect to be treated badly. Nonetheless, they must stand undaunted. That is required. And that should be expected. For it is bravery that is required to secure freedom." 

—U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas 

The Clarence Thomas Center for Historic Preservation 

This en Plein air is of Savannah College of Art and Design’s Clarence Thomas Center for Historic Preservation. The building originated in 1908 as an orphanage, school, and convent in service to the Missionary Sisters of the Franciscan Order.  

Named after U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, this beautiful three-story building underwent an extensive restoration in 2009. A Savannah-native, Thomas returned in early-2010 to rededicate this SCAD facility focused on teaching the art and science of preserving historically significant landmarks. 

Several of the Missionary Franciscan Sisters who taught the young Thomas when he attended this school and served here as an altar boy were also in attendance at its rededication. 

Few urban places on earth have succeeded in preserving their cityscape better than have Savannah. Throughout its Historic District, hundreds of Savannah landmarks have been extraordinarily preserved. 

An early scene in the recent documentary film entitled Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words (2020) recounts Thomas's earliest memories of growing up in the isolated community of Pin Point, Georgia, located just outside of Savannah. Many of the men raked oysters in the winter and caught crab and fish in the summer. The women work harder by picking crab and shucking oysters. 

The Thomas family descended from the West African slaves who lived on the barrier islands in the low country of Georgia, South Carolina, and coastal northern Florida. His people are called Geechee in Georgia. In South Carolina, they are named Gullah. Thomas was born at his home near Shipyard Creek in 1948. His parents separated when he was a toddler, leaving his mother to raise three children. 

After a fire destroyed their home in Pin Point, Thomas and his brother moved to Savannah and lived in an old tenement that he called: "The worst place I've ever lived." As he recounted, the contrast between the more acceptable rural poverty in Pin Point and the horrible unforgiving squalor he found in segregated Savannah was significant and remained forever a notable distinction. 

Savannah authorities enforced ‘Jim Crow’ segregation in the 1950s. His struggling mother asked his grandparents for help, and Thomas and his brother were soon living with them, while his sister remained with his mother. His grandfather introduced him to the new "rules and regulations" of living under his roof. It involved a lot of hard work "from sun to sun." His grandfather owned 60-acres of land outside Savannah, and physical labor dominated their time together, especially in the summers. 

His grandparent's home was new and modern, a good living provided by the modest success of his grandfather's entrepreneurial activities. More importantly, his grandparents understood that education offered Clarence and his brother Myers the keys to a better life. His grandfather committed to providing the two boys with the education he'd never received and enrolled them in Catholic School. 

One of Clarence's first lessons he needed to learn in school was to improve his diction by dropping his Geechee dialect along with a heavy Southern drawl. 

The holy fire that forced Clarence Thomas out of Pin Point and into Savannah led indirectly to the heat he would later face in his infamous and controversial confirmation hearings in the Senate. After learning of his successful confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court, his comment was, "Whoop-dee damn-doo!"