The rejoicing for Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson continues
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Good history was made in Washington, D.C., on April 7, 2022. Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson became Justice-designate Ketanji Brown Jackson, ready to take a seat on the highest court in the land when the new term begins in October. In the 233-year history of the Supreme Court, there have been 115 Justices, and 108 of them have been white men. In 1967, one barrier was broken with Thurgood Marshall’s confirmation. It took another 14 years for a woman, Sandra Day O’Connor to reach the bench. It took another 41 years for a Black woman to get there. Forty. One.
Which is just part of why the joy of this day is irrepressible. Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), who showed up just when he needed to during the confirmation hearings, to inject some humanity, some reverence for the moment, and some joy, reflected after the vote.
“Today is a day of healing for a lot of people. Today is a day of triumph for a lot of folks. And it’s definitely a day of celebration to see this glass ceiling shattered in what is a Jackie Robinson moment for America,” Booker said.
The middle students at Imani middle school in Houston, Texas, speak to that. “When you read about in books the amount of suffering that people have gone through who look like I do, the milestone, this is another milestone,” one of them said.
“It’s very inspiring,” seventh-grader Marley Brailey said. “It just shows that I can do this if I put my mind to it, that can be me. It’s just so inspirational that’s the best word that I can use to describe it.”
In Dayton, Ohio, Taylor Tyler is in her last year of law school at the University of Dayton and she wholeheartedly agrees. “It just means that as a black woman [I] have a place in law,” she said, while watching the confirmation with her fellow students. “Seeing someone that looks like us sends the message that you can do anything, you can do what you want. Just because you’re in a field that’s more dominated by people that don’t look like you, or don’t sound like you and talk like you, doesn’t mean you don’t have a place.”
But it’s in Georgia, where this moment was made possible by the hard work that got the Reverend Sen. Raphael Warnock and Sen. Jon Ossoff elected, that the celebration is sweetest.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s daughter, CEO of the King Center, Dr. Bernice King, called the confirmation a “powerful moment in the history of this nation.” She added, “What a reminder that change can come. Let’s embrace it and keep working for true peace.”
Stacey Abrams, whose Fair Fight Action helped mobilize so many voters in Georgia in 2020, applauded Jackson’s “intellectual rigor, compassion, and fortitude.”
“Congratulations, America!” she tweeted.
Georgia Democratic Rep. Hank Johnson tweeted: “I’m sure that Dr. King, who was assassinated 54 years and three days ago, beams with pride as our nation lives out the true meaning of its creed—that all men and women are created equal. I congratulate Judge Jackson and her family.”
Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens wrote that Justice Jackson’s “confirmation is historic, and I am confident that she will be a diligent and thoughtful addition to our nation’s highest court. […] While we still have much work ahead of us to ensure this country lives up to its highest of ideals, today we take one more step toward a more perfect union.”
And Sen. Raphael Warnock tweeted after the vote, “Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. Doesn’t that sound nice?”
That Vice President Kamala Harris, who shattered her own glass ceiling—two of them!—presided over the vote made it that much sweeter. So is what she quietly did on the Senate floor. She motioned Sens. Warnock and Booker to her desk, and gave them each sheets of blank stationery from the Office of the Vice President, and an assignment: “Write a letter to a young Black woman in their lives to mark the historic day.”
Here’s how Sen. Warnock’s completed his assignment, a letter to his daughter, Chloé.
“Dear Chloé, today we confirmed Ketanji Brown Jackson to the United States Supreme Court,” he wrote. “In our nation’s history, she is the first Supreme Court Justice who looks like you—with hair like ours. While we were voting on the floor of the Senate, a friend of mine—the Vice President of the United States—handed me this piece of paper and suggested I write a note to someone who comes to mind. By the way, she is the first Vice President who also looks like you!”
“So I wrote this note to say you can be anything, achieve anything you set your head and heart to do. Love you! Dad.”