Every transition among the justices of the Supreme Court is like a strike of lightning: its arrival and impact can be both unpredictable and wide-ranging. But the replacement of Thurgood Marshall with Clarence Thomas in 1991 has been the most impactful such transition of the last 75 years. Not only did it shift the ideological balance of the Court and lay the foundation for the Supreme Court of today; it was inextricably entangled with the persistent American dilemma of race. The Transition explores the origins and impacts of the work of these two jurists, tracing how their perspectives on crucial questions of American law and society reveal an extraordinary range of thought that has yet to be fully appreciated.