My Grandfather`s Son, by Clarence Thomas: on Education

In high school, considered journalism or priesthood

The fact that St. John Vianney had yet to admit a single black didn't worry Daddy, who was an active member of the local chapter of the NAACP and had routinely put up his property as bond to bail student protesters out of jail. The fall of 1964 Daddy drove me out to St. John Vianney. I walked into the seminary building, opened the door, and saw a sea of strange white faces. But their interest in me, though it made me uncomfortable, didn't seem hostile, and no one treated me badly or showed any signs of outright bigotry.

Graduated high school with strong discipline & strong grades

I'd always believed that I could do as well as whites, but now I KNEW it: my grades were the proof. Yet hope soon succumbed to reality, since I also knew that it would be all but impossible for a black kid like me to get into other schools and I decided to stick to my religious studies.

School vouchers preferable to busing & welfare

Focus on improving black colleges, not desegregation

It was widely accepted that black children were better off in integrated schools. Why, then, wasn't it enough to upgrade historically black colleges to the same level of quality as the predominantly white institutions? He replied that integration had nothing to do with education: the point of busing white and black children to each other's schools was to encourage their parents to move to those neighborhoods. I was aghast. All the black parents I knew tolerated the disruption of busing solely because they wanted better educational opportunities for their children, not so that they could live next door to whites.