Thomas Campbell Clark (September 23, 1899June 13, 1977) was an American lawyer who served as the 59th United States Attorney General from 1945 to 1949 and as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1949 to 1967.
Clark was born in Dallas, Texas, and graduated from the University of Texas School of Law after serving in World War I. He practiced law in Dallas until 1937, when he accepted a position in the U.S. Department of Justice. After Harry S. Truman became President of the United States in 1945, he chose Clark as his Attorney General. In 1949, Truman successfully nominated Clark to fill the U.S. Supreme Court vacancy caused by the death of Associate Justice Frank Murphy, making Clark the first and, as of 2021, the only Supreme Court Justice from the state of Texas. Clark remained on the Court until his retirement to allow his son, Ramsey Clark, to assume the position of Attorney General. Clark was succeeded by the first African-American Supreme Court Justice, Thurgood Marshall, in October 1967.
Clark served on the Vinson Court and the Warren Court. He voted with the Court's majority in several cases concerning racial segregation, including the landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education. He wrote the majority opinion in landmark Mapp v. Ohio, which ruled that the Fourth Amendment prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures applies to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. He also wrote the majority opinion in Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States, which upheld the public accommodations provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the majority opinions in Garner v. Board of Public Works, Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson, and Abington School District v. Schempp.
Early life
Clark was born in Dallas, Texas, on September 23, 1899, the son of Virginia Maxey (née Falls) and William Henry Clark. His parents had moved from Mississippi to Texas; his lawyer father became the youngest man ever elected president of the Texas Bar Association to that time. Young Tom attended the local public schools, including Dallas High School, where he received honors for debate and oratory. He also became an Eagle Scout. He then attended the Virginia Military Institute for a year but returned home for financial reasons. In 1918, Clark volunteered to serve in World War I with the U.S. Army, but he did not weigh enough. However, the Texas National Guard accepted him, and he served as an infantryman and advanced to Sergeant.
After the war ended, Clark enrolled at the University of Texas at Austin and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1921. He remained there and attended the University of Texas School of Law, receiving a Bachelor of Laws degree in 1922. He was a brother of Delta Tau Delta fraternity and later served as their international president from 1966 to 1968.
Early career
Upon admission to the Texas bar, Clark set up a law practice in his home town from 1922 to 1937. He left private practice to serve as the civil district attorney of Dallas from 1927 to 1932. He then resumed his private practice for four years.
Clark, a Democrat, joined the Justice Department in 1937 as a special assistant to the U.S. attorney general, working in the war risk litigation section. He later moved to the antitrust division, then run by legendary trust-buster Thurman Arnold, and in 1940 was sent to head up the department's West Coast antitrust office. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor the following year, Clark was named by Attorney General Francis Biddle as the Civilian Coordinator of the Alien Enemy Control Program. In this capacity, he worked with General John DeWitt, the head of West Coast military forces, and his future Supreme Court colleague Earl Warren, who was then attorney general of California, and other top federal and state officials in the lead up to the internment of Japanese Americans. The initial actions involved enforcement of policies to exclude Japanese Americans from areas designated by the military as prohibited, followed by evacuation from "critical zones and areas," and finally by forcible relocation to inland camps.