As the first African American woman and first public defender to sit on the United States Supreme Court, Ketanji Brown Jackson’s place in history is assured. Educated at public schools and the daughter of teachers, Jackson’s high school ambition was to graduate from law school and obtain a judicial appointment.

Like many African Americans, Jackson can document a history of slavery in her family. She also knows firsthand the sting of racism; after all, she was reared in the South and has been a Black woman in America for 54 years. Yet her immediate and extended family told her all her life that she was destined for greatness and above engaging with the prejudice that lingered even after the African American freedom movement of the 1960s. One incident during her childhood was especially distressing.    

Early in elementary school, a close playmate was a little white boy whose family lived near the University of Miami, where her father was a law student. Great buddies, they played happily, rode their bikes, and shared snacks together for weeks. Then one day, Tommy’s mother came to pick him up. “She spoke to me nicely and smiled the whole time, but I could sense that she thought something was wrong — and that something had to do with me.” The next day when she and Tommy met at their usual spot, the distraught boy informed her he wasn’t allowed to play with her anymore. Even though he and Ketanji thought they were the same, his mother thought otherwise, and that black and white children shouldn’t play together.

Ironically, she married a White man named Patrick Graves Jackson, a descendent of the Boston Brahmins, whom she had met in a class at Harvard. Her husband also counts among his ancestors a delegate of the Continental Congress named Jonathan Jackson, and is related to Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., the distinguished Supreme Court justice. Dr. Jackson has described his love for and pride in his wife as “palpable,” and has on occasion teared up in public while talking about her.

Jackson has very much been influenced by her family and has said that her parents spoke highly of public service; indeed it runs in her family. She grew up hearing the stories of her grandparents’ resilience in a deeply racist America. Her parents are what we in the black community refer to as strivers; both graduated from historically black institutions and were school teachers. Her birth name, Ketanji Onyika, means Lovely One in an African dialect and was suggested by her Aunt Carolynn, a Peace Corps volunteer stationed in West Africa. Her brother, Ketajh, is a graduate of Howard University, a veteran of the United States Army and a former police officer. Her uncles Calvin and Harold, were also police officers.

It was the law, however, with which she feel in love. This can be traced in part back to her childhood memories of sitting at the kitchen table with her father and his stack of books and papers from law school while she joined him with books and papers of her own. She also had the experience of interning at the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem. Jackson credits her work there with showing her the failings and inequities of America’s criminal justice system. She became especially cognizant of the impact of harsh plea bargains and excessive bail. The experience also reinforced for her that perhaps it is not enough to merely look at what the law says, but to remind ourselves that how the law is written and enforced matters tremendously in the lives of those who are less fortunate.

Prior to being appointed to the Supreme Court, Jackson was a former editor of the Harvard Law Review, clerked for several federal court judges, served as an assistant special counsel to the United States Sentencing Commission, and worked in private practice–something she seems not to have found very fulfilling. Jackson also clerked for Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer during the Court’s 1999 - 2000 term. It is his seat to which she was nominated in 2022.

Jackson’s life has been dominated by purpose, a prodigious work ethic, a loving and supportive family, and her personal goal of always doing more than her best. In 2004 she also realized a lifelong dream of performing on Broadway–she had been in love with and involved in theater all through school–in the production & Juliet in a part written especially for her.

I enjoyed Lovely One immensely. It reminds me of having a conversation with your closest sistah friend — the one who told you from the beginning that the guy you’ve been pining over is no good. Jackson seamlessly pulls together the various strands of her life and offers a very compelling read.