Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson stopped in heavily black Baltimore, Maryland to promote her new memoir, as the court's summer recess winds to a close.
Jackson was confirmed to the bench in 2022, fulfilling a pledge from Joe Biden to place the first black woman on the Supreme Court. Jackson has been fairly transparent about the symbolism of her appointment, which she discusses in her book, Lovely One.
In her book, the 54-year-old Harvard graduate places her career in the context of the struggle for civil rights.
“I am a member of the first generation post-Civil Rights Era. And the significance of that I just don’t want anyone to miss. I was born in 1970, which was within five or six years of the Civil Rights Act, the Voting rights Act, and the end of civil pro-segregation," Jackson said at Enoch Pratt Free Library’s Central Branch.
Jackson credits her father, a teacher who later became a Miami-Dade school board attorney, with sparking her interest in the law.
“My father went back to law school when I was three years old. We lived on the campus of the University of Miami Law School,” she said. "My earliest memories are of my dad’s education table with his law books.”
The court is on its summer recess, but the institution has continued to come under scrutiny from the left, with the New York Times publishing a sprawling leak of the court's business.
The report focused heavily on three January 6th cases, including one controversy in which Jackson sided with the conservative majority. The liberal jurist surprisingly pushed back on the government's sweeping interpretation of a federal obstruction statute.
In an interview with CNN, Jackson said the law in the case was clearly against the Justice Department, despite her feelings about the January 6th riot.
"I ruled in that case consistent with what I believed the law required, given the statute at issue, the context in which it was enacted, the text of the statute, and its purposes," she told interviewer Abby Phillip.
Speaking with fans in Baltimore, Jackson shared the moment she felt the emotional impact of her promotion to the highest court in the land.
“I think the moment that hit me– the first moment–was the day I was confirmed. I actually went to the White House for the vote call, and it was really overwhelming to watch the votes come in,” she said.
