Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is back in the headlines after an unexplained appearance on Capitol Hill, followed days later by a dissent in the Supreme Court's birthright citizenship ruling. The court rejected President Donald Trump's effort to restrict the constitutional protection, while Thomas argued the majority had relied too heavily on long-standing precedent and challenged the prevailing interpretation of the 14th Amendment's Citizenship Clause.

Attention has since turned to the justice's background, finances and more than three decades on the bench. Here are the key facts about Clarence Thomas worth knowing.

Clarence Thomas was born on 23 June 1948 in Pin Point, a small predominantly Black community in Georgia. He was born to MC Thomas and Leola Williams and spent much of his early childhood in poverty.

After a house fire displaced the family, Thomas and his younger brother were sent to live with their maternal grandparents, Myers and Christine Anderson. Thomas has frequently credited his grandfather with instilling discipline, resilience and a strong work ethic that shaped his worldview.

He attended the College of the Holy Cross before earning his law degree from Yale Law School in 1974.

Thomas was first married to Kathy Ambush in 1971, and the couple had one son, Jamal Adeen Thomas, before divorcing in 1984. In 1987, he married Virginia Thomas, widely known as Ginni Thomas, a conservative activist who has also drawn public attention for her political involvement.

Together with his wife, Thomas helped raise his grandnephew, Mark Martin, who has previously described the justice as a father figure. Thomas has written about the experience in his memoir.

Thomas began his legal career as an assistant attorney general in Missouri before steadily rising through the ranks of federal public service. He later served in the Reagan administration as chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission from 1982 to 1990.

In 1990, President George HW Bush appointed Thomas to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Just one year later, Bush nominated him to replace retiring Justice Marshall on the Supreme Court.

Thomas' 1991 confirmation hearings became one of the most contentious in modern history after law professor Anita Hill accused him of sexual harassment. Thomas denied the allegations and described the hearings as 'a high-tech lynching for uppity Blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas'.