On Feb. 25, 2022 former United States President Joe Biden nominated Ketanji Onyika Brown Jackson to become the first female of African American descent to be nominated as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States of America. On June 30, 2022, Jackson was sworn into the office and became the first Black woman and first former federal public defender to serve on the U. S. Supreme Court.
Let’s trace her steps to this prestigious position. She was born in Washington D. C. on Sept. 14, 1970. Her family moved to Miami, Florida where she grew up. Both of her parents were teachers. Later her father, Johnny Brown, attended and graduated from the University of Miami School of Law and became chief attorney for the Miami Dade County School Board. Her mother, Ellery, was the school principal at the New World School of the Arts in Miami. One of her uncles, Calvin Ross, served as the police chief of the Miami Police Department.
She had a very solid foundation as she grew up. She attended Miami Palmetto Senior High School. Here she distinguished herself as a great debater, winning the national oratory title at the National Catholic Forensic League championship held in New Orleans during her senior year. She was quoted saying “that I can say without hesitation that was the one activity that best prepared me for future success in law and in life.” In her senior yearbook, her career aspirations were quoted as her saying that she wanted “to go into law and eventually have a judicial appointment.”
She envisioned her future and spoke it into existence along with much hard work. Jackson received her undergraduate and legal education at Harvard University. It was here she served as an editor of the Harvard Law Review and clerked for Justice Stephen Breyer, whose seat she later assumed on the Supreme Court.
From 2010 to 2014, Jackson served as the vice chairwoman of the United States Sentencing Commission. In 2013, she was appointed by former President Barack Obama to serve as the district judge for the United States Court for the District of Columbia. Former President Joe Biden raised her position to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 2021, where she served until 2022. Jackson served as a Harvard Board of Overseers member from 2016 to 2022.
In 1996, Jackson married Patrick Graves Jackson who is a surgeon she met at Harvard. He is a descendant of the Continental Congress delegate Jonathan Jackson and is related to the former U. S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. They are the proud parents of two daughters.
In 2017, Jackson is quoted in a speech saying, “I am fairly certain that if you traced my family lineage back past my grandparents – who were raised in Georgia, by the way – you would find that my ancestors were slaves on both sides.”
This honorable Black woman has the tremendous job and responsibilities to Keep an Eye on Safety for all American by ruling on legally appealed cases to determine if they are aligned with our nation’s constitution.
