When Clarence Thomas took a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court in 1991, he had only barely survived a series of bitter Senate hearings on allegations of sexual harassment that divided the country.
But he said he was quickly welcomed by his eight fellow justices.
"After going through all those difficulties, the members of the court were just wonderful people to a person," Thomas said in an appearance at the Library of Congress earlier this year. "So the court itself is quite different from the ordeal. It's almost the opposite of the ordeal it took to get there."