Presenting Lovely One: A Memoir with Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson

Transcript:
welcome to the William G mcgaan theater at the National Archives I’m J Bano
Deputy archist of the United States and I am pleased that you could join us for tonight’s very special program we are
co-hosting tonight’s program with our partners at the National Archives foundation and the March on Washington
film festival this evening we are very fortunate to hear a discussion between
kyite and Supreme Court Justice katangi Brown Jackson Wright is a
journalist activist and author he is the host of the podcast notes from America
with KY Wright which explores current events placed within political and
historical context Justice katangi Brown Jackson is the most recent appointment to our
nation’s highest court she’s born right here in Washington DC and earned a ba
from Harvard rad Radcliffe college and a JD from Harvard Law School President
Barack Obama appointed her to the US District Court for the District of Columbia where she served from 2013
until 2021 President Joe Biden appointed her to the US court of appeals for the DC
circuit in 20121 and then nominated her as an
associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court the following year on June
30th 2022 Justice Jackson was sworn in becoming the
104th associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States we have a
long tradition of Hosting justices here at the National Archives building and we are thrilled to have Justice Jackson
Jackson with us this evening Justice Jackson has recently released a new Memoir lovely one which
traces her family’s Ascent from segregation to her confirmation as the
first female Justice first black female Justice of the US Supreme Court this all
occurred within the span of a single generation and I am looking forward to
hearing more about Justice Jackson’s Journey thanks again for joining us
tonight sit back we’re going to start the program
[Applause] now I love that don’t you love
that good evening everyone my name is Joanne Herby and I have the pleasure of serving as the
executive director of marchon marchon is an arts and education
platform we deploy art in all its forms visual performance film making the written word
all of it in order to advance our mission which is to tell the untold or
mold stories of the past using where we’ve been as a call to action to where
we need to go as it called to march on our tagline is stories that move
because we’ve seen the transformational power of Storytelling to move all people
of all ages races backgrounds move them toward listening
toward reflecting toward becoming active parts of something larger than
themselves and while our programming is year round and Nationwide we are most
known for the multi-day Arts and Film Festival that our team produces every
year here in Washington DC and so before I go any further on this penultimate day
of our Festival where our team has produced 22 events across 8 day days
taking place all over the city I’d like everyone from the marchon team our amazing staff volunteers our board to
stand and wave and be recognized you all have done a fantastic job so thank
[Applause] you now I’d like to share a brief story
with you in addition to being part of March on this year I did a little
Moonlighting I had the opportunity to help support Justice Jackson’s book tour
earlier this year as she did media appearances and spoke with audiences around the country about her
Memoir after one particular media interview still in the early stages of
preparing for the tour a few of us were debriefing with the Justice about how the interview went and I said I think it
was a really great discussion but you may have made a little News justice when you said
X and the Justice looked at me for a brief moment and replied well it was the
truth I’m comfortable with that and at that moment it became crystal clear to
me that this remarkable woman was not only a history maker not only an icon
for women and girls and black people around the world but she was a truth tell teller unapologetically
so and at march on we love truth tellers and so truth is what you can
expect to hear tonight how does a woman who does not come from a place of
privilege or access a woman with distinctly African features right down
to the roots of her hair a woman with a non-european sounding name how is she
the one to rise to become the first ever black woman to serve on the highest
court of our land what were the circumstances behind her Ascension and what can we take from
her story to apply as our own personal calls to action our own efforts to march
on how can her story move you the justice will be joined in
conversation tonight by by Kai Wright host of New York public radio’s nationally syndicated podcast notes from
America and we’ll be graced by performances by women of the Calabash a percussion and vocal Ensemble playing
music from across the African diaspora we want to thank our colleagues at ahf’s We the People national campaign
for their support and collaboration in producing this event and their ongoing
collaboration with notes from America I’d also like to thank our wonderful host Tonight here here at the National
Archives I hope our audiences will actually take it upon themselves to come back to visit this gem that is the
National Archives on a night of truthtellah
march on festival and a number of whom who truly went above and beyond this year to step into the breach with us at
a time in our country where economic anxiety is real for many communities it’s an important value for us at march
on that money not be a barrier for people to be able to access our programs because of our sponsors almost every
single event of this year’s Festival was free of charge and many events are available for subsequent viewing online
and so thank thank you to our sponsors and I have a special gift on behalf of
the sponsors I’m delighted to share that today’s audience members will receive
one signed copy of Justice Jackson’s Memoir lovely
[Applause]
one you’ll receive the copies as you leave the auditorium please take just one one and if you need more than one
there are additional copies available sign copies in the gift shop and with that I’d like to welcome
to the stage our moderator KY Wright who will tell you what to expect for this special evening thank
you hello everybody okay so oh than there we go this is the spirit um a few
details about what’s going to fold um so as you’ve heard notes from America is a
live radio show it airs on public radio stations around the country every Sunday evening uh and as a podcast and what we
are going to do here tonight is make tomorrow show live with you uh so it’s going to unfold just like we would a
normal show uh it will start with our theme music and then I’ll sit down I’ll
be talking to the radio audience um uh and we’ll introduce the show we’ll take
some breaks where this public radio stations get to you know ask people for money and all of that great stuff in
those breaks instead of being asked for money don’t worry we’re GNA let you get
wonderful performances from the women of the calibash uh and all of this means a
couple of things for you so first off when I come and go from the breaks when
I come into when I start the show and I say we’re at the National Archives at
the march on festival and when I do that coming back from the breaks I would like people in Cleveland and Houston and Los
Angeles and Atlanta and everywhere to be like those people are having a grand time and I want to get my ticket to
march on for next year right now so when I say that I want to hear you know how y’all did when you heard you were
getting the free books I want to hear that at that moment
all right second thing this means for you involves your phones now uh a few things
with this some good some bad so I want you first off uh be prepared to turn
your phones off or at least silence them now you’re going to have an opportunity uh we know everybody’s going to want to
take a picture of Justice Jackson so when I bring her onto the stage you’re allowed to take a picture then um after
that you have to put it away or somebody will escort you out of the building I’m so serious so please do that but also
while you have your phones out if I may make a Shameless plug we are up for an award uh we love to do this make these
live shows we’ve done four of them this year uh one of them that we make in
partnership with march on on MLK Day at the Apollo uh is up for an award for the
uh best show in front of an audience of the year uh and the cool thing about this award is it’s a listener listeners
vote so if at the end of this you’re like that was great I love that they should win that award vote for us uh go
to our Instagram page it’s notes with Kai k Ai and if you go into the stories
you’ll see a link there where you can go to the signal Awards and vote for us uh and that’ll be that but the most
important thing is please after we start put your phone away uh turn it off turn the silence it everybody will be happier
all right okay so we are going to get started I’m going to bring out Justice
Jackson and then you’ll hear the theme music then we’ll be rolling so please welcome to the stage Justice katangi
Brown [Applause]
Jackson it’s notes from America I’m Kai Wright coming to you this week from the national archives in Washington DC hello
DC all right this is a special edition of our
show we are here in partnership with we the people as part of the march on Festival which is dedicated to telling
the stories of civil rights movements our show has always kept history at the
center of our conversation and this week we have the incredible opportunity to meet someone whose personal story is now
a huge part of the official history of this country katangi Brown Jackson is an
associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States she joined the court in June of 2022 after being
nominated by President Biden she is among many other things the first black woman to serve on the high court and she
joins us today because she has written a best-selling Memoir it’s called Lovely One Justice Jackson welcome to notes
from America well thank you for having me I’m delighted to be here it is such a joy I I have to say to start us off here
that we are birthday twins are we we are indeed I was also born on September 14th
in the early 1970s uh I say that not only to ingratiate myself to you but
also because uh you know you have brought up often that um black people of
our age of Our Generation born in that era um that we are the first generation
inheritors yes of the civil rights movement and I have actually always thought of myself that way um but I
wonder if you can just unpack what you mean when you say that um and how that fact of history shapes
you oh my goodness well uh thank you for having me and for uh eluca the fact that
you and I have this in common um you know I say in the book that if Dr Martin
Luther King gave America a metaphorical check come do our generation was the
first to reap the installments yeah that we were right there um in 1970 which is
when I was born within five or six years after the Civil Rights Act the Voting
Rights Act um the end of Jim Crow segregation and what it meant for me um
and perhaps for you is that my parents who had grown up in segregation in Miami
Florida uh saw this as an opportunity to invest in their daughter’s potential in
a way that they did not have growing up they were not allowed to go to public parks and swim in public pools and take
music lessons and do all the things and so when I was born they said here’s our
shot um our daughter is going to do everything and they just made sure that
I was prepared for the opportunity to live fully in America well also I have
to say I mean I don’t know any way to put this other than bluntly you grew up in a very Pro black house I did I did um
you know my parents had grown up in Miami but they both went to historically
black colleges and universities uh my mother went to school at tusi University in Alabama my dad went to North Carolina
Central and um they you know really took to heart their african- americanness uh
they gave their daughter an African name um you know when I was uh born my aunt
was in the Peace Corps in Africa and my mother asked her to send African names
and when I was born my parents were both Public School teachers and my dad taught history and he was part of the
development of black history curriculum um in the early 1970s and so they really
were focused here at the DC public schools in the DC public schools I was born in Washington DC uh and then my
father uh after teaching public schools at Belo here uh history uh for a couple
of years decided that he wanted to go back to law school or wanted to go to school um to learn the law because it of
its intersection with history and all of the things that he was learning and he got into the University of Miami which
is where both of my parents had grown up uh and so we moved back uh to Miami and
the thing that was so um pivotal for me about that experience is that we
actually lived on the campus of the University of Miami when I was four five
6 years old and I remember sitting at the kitchen table with my dad with his
law books and I’m with my coloring books and we’re working together and I never thought you could do anything but go to
law school because that was my experience from that young and it was such an impression that I always wanted
to be a lawyer yeah I you know all of this is incredibly familiar and legible to me and I imagine many uh black people
who grew up in striving households of that era um and you know these you write
about the values of like grit and perseverance and you got to get through this yes I do wonder and I wonder this
for myself you know the toll that takes on us also you know
um you know have you thought about the the weight that comes with The
Inheritance you know of being the children of the first inheritors of the Civil Rights Movement well there is some
weight to it I guess I was sort of a pleaser growing up just wanted to make my parents happy and they just wanted me
to do everything and they always told me you know has this thing been done before
when I was whining about doing something my mother would say I’m sorry have you seen someone do this before if this can
be done you can do it and that was her attitude and the way in which they told
me to approach the world and I you know embraced it I I think the weight to the
extent that it existed for me at least was I went to uh predominantly white
Public Schools growing up and I think being one or two or three in uh my
honors classes and and AP classes really sort of made me feel um you know by
myself a fair amount and also representing a fair amount and so
there’s the pressure of not wanting to uh do poorly of always wanting to to be
on top of everything because you get a sense that people are watching to see how you’re going to do in this
environment did is that what drove your ambition you were a wildly ambitious child I I you at 12 is when you decided
you wanted to be a federal judge pretty much um you know I was in Middle School and I learned about our birthday twin
Constance Baker matley introduce us to briefly introduce us to constant Baker
Motley so constant Baker Motley was the first African-American female federal judge and she’s also the first black
woman to argue a case in the Supreme Court in fact she argued 10 cases in the
Supreme Court and won nine of them she was amazing she was a uh one an
associate of Justice Marshall she helped to um uh argue and do the strategies
behind Brown versus the Board um but you know as I say in the book and as I’ve said in these talks um you know she
never had the chance to be on the Supreme Court because of the times in which she lived and so for me that makes
me feel so grateful um but learning about her and knowing that she shared
our a birthday um when I was in Middle School I said oh I I want to be a
federal judge it’s crazy and stated in your application to
Harvard College that you intended this is what blows me a m you stated that you intended to to be the first black woman
on the Supreme Court you were what 17 I I did I
did believe somebody when they tell you something I suppose uh but I do want
like that level of ambition was that driven by this idea of being the only person in those rooms you know I don’t
know I haven’t really sort of parsed it out it was just always who I was I think it was the feeling that was given to me
by my parents that you really can do anything you want to do so it was just a matter of identifying what it was I
wanted to do and be and then you know you work hard to train yourself to be
the best you can be in that position did you ever at any point waiver in that
belief not really no I mean you know there were there
there were obvious times so I talk in the book a little bit about arriving at Harvard um where I went uh for undergrad
and Law School uh but I had gone to Public Schools I didn’t really know anything about Harvard except that we
had uh gone there my speech and debate team I was a oror in high school and um
our coach had taken us to various tournaments around the country and Harvard had a tournament and I thought
this seemed like a pretty nice school I you know maybe I should apply um and I get in and I go there and it was so so
foreign I mean it was just completely a different world than South Florida and I
think there were times especially my freshman year when I felt like oh what have I gotten myself into can I really
do it do this job well we will come back to that we need to take a break you’re listening to
notes from America I’m Kai Wright and I’m talking with Supreme Court Justice koni Brown Jackson about her bestselling
Memoir lovely one we are here with a live audience at the national archives as part of the march on Festival coming
up we’ll talk about the role of descent on the court but first we’re going to be treated to a performance by the
wonderful group women of the Calabash stay with us
[Applause]
KO
oh
is
is
[Music]
we’re out here in front of the US Supreme Court bill building what brings you here um because it was on the way to
the hostel that I’m staying at do you know what building you’re I have no clue it says Equal justice under law so to
see the place where our future is going to be decided and I don’t know to maybe
send some good wishes to the people who are looking out for us and maybe shake my fist a little bit at the ones that
aren’t this is my first time in dcas I just wanted to come and see the most important building especially this one
what does this Building represent it represents democracy it is a physical representation of one branch of our
federal government is right here you can stand on it you can feel it you can touch it you can go inside it Supreme
Court cases obviously mean a lot to attorneys because we turn to them and we look to them justices are people we look
up to it’s very interesting to stand here and look at Equal justice under the law and then think but is it with all
the things that have been happening recently and it’s uh it makes you think about the people that are in there
making those decisions what the court does is so critically important to individuals to institutions to families
and to generations of citizens they make a huge huge [Music]
difference it’s notes from America I’m Kai Wright coming to you this week alongside a live audience at the
national archives in Washington
DC we are here for the march on Festival and I’m joined by Supreme Court Justice
ketanji Brown Jackson we’re talking about her new Memoir lovely one and
Justice Jackson uh as a sitting member of the Court you of course do not discuss specific cases or political
debates um but we can’t talk a bit about being on the Supreme Court in this moment in history um in the voices you
heard as we were coming back from the Break um you know you heard a number of sentiments but you did hear an echo of
something our listeners have told us repeatedly on this show uh which is that
a lot of people really distrust the Supreme Court right now um and uh there
is just a real question about the legitimacy of this institution and so you know you have joined this you’ve
made history joining this court at a time when it’s just it’s a weird time and it’s history and of course you
certainly don’t need to answer for the actions that led to that uh but I do wonder what you’d say to people who are
simult multaneously uh inspired by your appointment and not sure that they can
believe in this institution to use its power fairly right now well I appreciated your segment uh
of uh recording people in front of the court um I especially appreciated the
person who said this is a government in institution you can be here you can
touch it you can go inside it um I would encourage people to continue to be
engaged in their government um the idea of uh the Supreme Court sort of standing
Beyond and above public criticism and critique I think is not a sound one we
are a branch of government just like the other branches of government and uh the
the thing that distinguishes us in a way is that we need public legitimacy it is
the way in which our uh opinions are enforced we don’t have an army we don’t
have the power of the purse uh what we have is people who believe in the rule
of law and who trust this institution to safeguard it and so um what I would say
is continue to engage um read our opinions form your own opinions about
what it is that the court is doing um I am doing what I can as a Justice to
try to um explain to the public that uh law and politics are two different
things and uh to do what um I know
justices do and are supposed to do in our government I mean you’re obviously a
student of the Court’s history um and a deep student of civil rights history um
and uh you you were sworn in on Justice harland’s uh Bible I
was my I’m so now I’m going to ask you for for therapy for me about thinking about the Supreme
Court my armchair history of the court I feel like its history is primarily one
of restricting our rights with with the with the with the brief exception of a of a little period in the in the mid
20th century so much of the history of the court has been tough for black people um uh is
that a fair understanding of the Court’s history how do you think about the Court’s history well you know I think
the court has a long history we go through uh different periods the country
has a long history and we go through different periods some more uh difficult
than others um you are not wrong to observe that there are times uh in which
the court has ruled in ways that have impacted uh African-Americans and then
we know uh that there are times when the court has done things like Brown versus
the Board uh that really made an enormous difference in the lives of African-Americans in this country so
it’s not linear the the life of the Court yeah and it’s I mean part of why I
asked that is you know we have generations of history of debate in
the community about how do we make change you know um and uh there are folks who are like hey there are folks
who are like I just we should go we should leave we should get out of here um there are people who are saying you
know we got to fight it from the outside and then there are folks who are say you know we have to be in these institutions
that are government you are clearly someone I to correct me if I’m wrong who believes in the institutions absolutely
United States it is an incredible honor to be able to serve the American people
in this way and I encourage anyone who who uh really cares about government to
get involved in some way whether it be um you know as a voter or as a person
who decides they want to actually enter the institutions are can you make the case to that that cynic um who says you
know this these institutions were built to keep us down why would I engage in them uh this is this can’t work um can
you make the case for like why it can well I mean all I can say is you talked about history think where would we would
be if that had been the prevailing attitude for people you know when my grandparents were growing up um we have
made so much progress as a country in part because people have decided that we
too are Americans and we are entitled to participate and to do what we can to
make this country better to live up to the ideals that are in our constitution
and that’s what I’m trying to do and what I encourage other Americans to do
uh you will given the composition of the Court you’ll likely spend a lot of time uh on the court writing dissenting
opinions uh now I don’t want to presume anything but you know those of those of us who watch from the outside can assume
that they’re they’re in some of the most public and far-reaching cases you’re likely to write a lot of descents um
what is the role of a dissenting opinion uh in your mind like H how do you think about the purpose of dissent on the
court well I think dissent is uh crucial in a lot of ways um one is that it
really demonstrates to the public um that there are different ways of
thinking about legal issues uh that there are reasoned reasonable uh debate
about um uh the issues of our time um
that we can dis agree without being disagreeable uh all of these sort of
modeling functions I think are very important uh and it also gives those who
disagree with the majority’s view the opportunity to explain their position
and you hope that your explanation will be persuasive to people who will then
take it in the future perhaps and make it the law one of your most widely discussed
written opinions um uh is your descent in the Court’s 2023 ruling that struck
down affirmative action at your alma mater Harvard and at UNCC um and the majority
opinion uh has been characterized as asserting that we have a color blind
Society um and it certainly pointed to the to brown brown B board um as
precedent for demanding uh race neutral admissions policies you wrote in your
strongly worded descent uh that that ruling was quote a trag truly a tragedy for us all and you
further pointed out that the majority stated that the ruling doesn’t apply to
Military acmis and and I I just want to quote what you wrote you wrote the court has come to rest on the bottomline
conclusion that racial diversity and higher education is only worth potentially preserving in so far as it
might be needed to prepare black Americans and other un underrepresented minorities for success in the bunk ER
not the boardroom I wonder about your thought process and crafting that descent what
how how did you think about what was important to say uh in that moment in history well one thing I will say is
that um my descent was not the principal descent in the case um I wrote uh an
additional descent so in terms of the arguments that most directly uh
responded to the majority’s view Justice s mayor wrote for all uh uh for me
Justice Kagan and herself um to make that kind of direct response my descent
was designed to talk primarily about uh the history and about um uh my just
wanting to make sure that the public understood what at least my view was of
the purpose uh of affirmative action the the reasons why these kinds of programs
had been put into place to begin with having to do with The Arc of history and
uh the ways in which African-Americans had historically been treated and I felt as though uh that had not been given
sufficient attention in the majority opinion and I wanted to highlight uh
that reality that reality yes education has just it’s been such a huge part of
your story and your family’s story uh and access to it as black folks
in the 20th century that certainly in the 21st century but that generation in particular it was such a big part uh of
how we were brought up uh I have to imagine that this was a uniquely
difficult case to take there are many difficult cases on the Supreme Court
indeed indeed U but but is I mean and
you and maybe this is something you can’t speak to but I just I I imagine given everything I know about your
biography having to weigh in on this question of whether or not uh
affirmative action should exist I just I wonder about the emotional reality of well I will tell you what was uh
particularly challenging for me was that it was one of the first cases I heard as a Justice um you know you can’t control
the timing of things but I think I would have preferred to been there for more than a minute before I have to deal with
um such a fraught issue um and there were aspects of uh the issue that
absolutely had some resonance for me as an African-American for whom uh
education was extraordinarily important in my family and in my story um I think
that happens in many cases for many justices one of my favorite quotes is
from Oliver wendle Holmes who said that the life of the law is not logic it is
experience and so what judges are doing in many instances is evaluating the um
reliability or reasonableness of arguments in light of their understanding and their experience and
so I think um having that case that early really did uh call upon
experiences that may have been unique to me as the first first African-American woman on the
court uh any nomin any Supreme Court nomination at this point in history is a
bit of a political spectacle I cannot imagine the that process
um the concept of affirmative action was very much part of the public disc
discussion around your nomination um uh I’d say even on our show you know as uh
we were as it was unfolding and we were taking calls we got a lot of calls from black women uh who said I you know who
were so happy so thrilled by this and also very frustrated that the president
had even said that he was going to nominate a black woman because it set up this conversation about your
qualifications and um I guess I I I it would be remiss for me not to ask you to
answer those listeners who so many times wondered on our show how you navigated
that moment um where your the historic nature of your
nomination was put in tension with your qualifications I would say I I paid very
little attention to it and the reason is because um of my qualifications because
of my resonance um I mean that that critique
was clearly nonsensical when you looked at who I was what I had done how I was
trained where I went to law school the three clerk ships that I did including
on the Supreme Court um so I honestly did not pay much attention to that at
all dear listener asked and answered
um but so I do have to imagine how bizarre it would be to be at the one
of the just the whole world is talking about you in that moment and I can’t
imagine you see yourself like as a full like a as a reflection of your actual human self in that
conversation did you write this Memoir and reaction to that was was this your effort to to to tell this is my story no
not really I you know I wrote this Memoir out of gratitude sheer gratitude
um you know I started writing it just about about two little over two years ago right after the confirmation so
grateful that I had survived what you say is a big public spectacle um and
really wanting to pay tribute to the people and the circumstances that I felt
were really the most responsible for preparing me for this moment for uh
helping me to be uh the person that I am and the lawyer that I am and so the book
is a about explaining where I come from and I thought it was important to do
that this is notes from America I’m Kai Wright and I’m talking with Supreme Court Justice katangi Brown Jackson
about her best-selling Memoir lovely one we are here with a live audience at the National Archives as part of the march
on Festival coming up we’ll talk about the Justice’s background in stage performance and her Broadway
dreams plus some questions from students at Howard University but first here is another performance from the women of
the
[Music] [Applause]
Calabash excuse
[Music]
why is a why is a why is
a why is there a why is there
a why is there
a
[Music] ay
boyyy boyy
booy boo
Bo
[Music]
[Music]
w
it has taken 232 years and 115 prior appointments for a black woman
to be elected to serve on the Supreme Court of the United
States but we’ve made [Applause]
it we’ve made it all of us all of
us and and our children are telling me
that they see now more than ever that here in America anything is
[Music] possible it’s notes from America I’m Kai Wright coming to you this week from the
march on festival with a fabulous live audience at the national archives in Washington
DC I am joined by Supreme Court Justice katangi Brown Jackson we’re talking
about her new Memoir lovely one and Justice daxon my favorite part of your Memoir is
learning about your stage dream not stage dreams your stage
realities in high school in Miami you were a fiercely competitive Champion
debater yes uh but you did not compete in
the categories where you just argue with each other yes uh you competed in the performance categories uh tell me about
that you’re you were a performer explain to people who don’t in in two different ways um you know
people think of speech and debate and you have an idea of The Debaters who go
back and forth and they argue but they’re also speech categories and one of them which was my main event uh was a
original oratory which is where you write your own speech and you memorize
it a 10 minut minute speech and you perform it competitively uh in
tournaments and eventually uh hopefully you make it to the final round and then you are uh crowned the winner
if you’re lucky um and then there are uh dramatic in humorous interpretation
categories which are sort of like um Anna deir Smith’s performances one woman
performances where you take plays uh and you cut them down into 10-minute
segments and you embody the different characters uh and you do that as sort of
a a 10-minute segment competitively and I did all three of those categories in
in high school it’s so cool one of the the performances you write about in the Memoir uh really stuck with me uh it’s
one where you took two poems one by Nikki Giovani and one by inaki Shang um
and remixed them yes uh as a comment on the uh the the black children who were
being found murdered in Atlanta at that time um and I have asked you uh to read
a bit of that part of it um so I’ve marked it here in the book this is the section you’re going to read the section
just is going to read just to set it up for a second begins with the poem part of the poem from inak Shang uh so take
it away cuz he’s black and poor he’s
disappeared the name was lost the games weren’t
played nobody tucks him in at night WIP traces of cornbread and syrup from his
fingers every time the Earth moves it’s me and all my friends flying
underground off to a socer game or basketball always running I can make the
earth move flying underground as I recited the braided
piece I continuously altered my countenance and inflection back and
forth to Signal changes between the two different narrators first Shang followed
by Giovani no ropes this time no tar and
Feathers weren’t no parades of sheets fires and Crosses nothing no
signs teacher says I do real good in school I like to read books books I draw
pictures with lots of sun and clouds thank you for
that the the piece goes on there’s more to it
that’s a little piece of it but what about these murders what about that
moment brought you to what what moved you to do that well you know um I
mentioned that I had uh grown up in uh wh predominantly white school settings
and I had a wonderful wonderful debate coach Fran berer who was fabulous um and
she would offer her students pieces that she was familiar with from her
repertoire so I did a lot of Neil Simon um and a lot of you know plays of
that genre but um I got to a point when I was maybe in 11th grade where I really
noticed that in my rounds and in my competitions there weren’t a lot of pieces that represented my culture my
Heritage and so I decided um having lived through this was I think the
murders were within the decade before this period early exactly uh having
lived through that very very difficult time uh for black kids in the South um I
wanted to do something that represented that and so I created this piece and I
did it for the first time at Emory in Atlanta and it was really quite
something and one and and one
yes I remember those I you know I was a little kid at the time as well and I remember being being scared one of my
few early childhood memories is fear because of that story yes did it impact
you that way oh absolutely I mean you know there there we are we’re young black kids I’m in Florida um and uh I
just have a memory of turning on the news and they’re saying these children are disappearing nobody can figure out
where they are uh they’re turning up dead and it was very very very
stressful what is it about performance that Drew you why why um you know you you you already knew you wanted to be a
Supreme Court Justice you know it’s you wanted to be a lawyer that’s a arguing kind of space well again you know I said
my parents wanted me to do all the things and so when I was you know five six seven years old my mother had
enrolled me in the Miami Dade County Youth Fair speech uh program uh and I
was on the stage uh my very one of my very first recitations was um uh
Margaret Walker um you know for my people everywhere singing their slave
songs repeatedly I memorized this when I was you know seven years old and so I
always had a love of being on the stage and and Performing do you you have
declared that you want to be on Broadway do you intend to be on Broadway still I would love to I mean you mentioned my my
essay what I had what I said was I want to be the first black woman Supreme
Court Justice to appear on a Broadway stage a beat very
important so you are not yet done well you got my ticket
I in in Miami you had a childhood friend named Sunny um who you write about in
the book is she was white um and you that was a special relationship for you
very special um she shared with you at some point I think as you after you were
adults uh that she had been hurt by the anti-black racism that she saw you
experience in your childhood but you yourself uh remember
it you thought I don’t know what she’s talking about I didn’t have that experience um why do you think that’s
the case what do you what do you think was the the difference between the two there that she was seeing this and you
were like eh you know I don’t know I I don’t know it was surprising to me sunny
um Sunny’s mother went back to law school and she grew up on the campus of
the University of Miami and so she was my very first friend uh the two of us there little girls on the the law school
campus and we went to public elementary school and years later she said you know
I noticed how some of the teachers were harder on the black kids and they would you know punish people for small things
and black kids but not the white kids and I I had no independent memory of
that and I don’t know why I think part of perhaps my own way of moving through
the world was not to pay attention not to focus on those sorts of things
because that just enabled me to do what it is that I needed to do right uh our
show is usually a live call-in show um where we invite listeners to join us by asking questions uh and share their own
life experiences since we couldn’t do that this week because we’re here at The Archives what we did do uh was go over
the campus of Howard University and offer students a chance to submit questions to you before I share a few of
those can you quickly so there’s a story in your Memoir there that I love uh where you go and tell your grandmother
about being admitted to Harvard uh and she has a reaction what
was her reaction so my grandmother um who had no more than grade school
education but had worked hard uh as a nurse’s aid to help put her children
through uh historically black universities my parents were first generation um
said I said uh Grandma I I I’m so excited I got into Harvard and she said
oh Howard baby that is so
wonderful and I and I said I said oh no
Grandma I know IID said I wanted to go to school in Washington DC but this is a school in Massachusetts and it’s really
good and she said oh well I’m sure that Harvard is a perfectly good school too
so that’s for all of you Howard people out there and all of your Howard
chauvinism um well let’s do some of these questions from Howard students uh here is the first one what inspired her
and like what inspires her to keep going cuz I’m sure it’s a difficult position to be
in and what keeps you going I think is wow you know I I’m inspired by by um
history I’m inspired by the women and people who came before me who paved the
way for me to be doing this job and what keeps me going is the young people who I
hope that I’m inspiring that paying it forward passing it along yeah that the
this this cross-cultural or cross-generational dialogue right that your parents we were the inheritors of
their work maybe these young people will be the inheritors of your work I can hear that let’s hear the next one what
would you say to young black girls who are looking up to you and wanting to be in these position of power what and I
think just to elaborate on it a little bit like the idea of stepping into Power
yes um uh and specifically stepping into power as a black woman yes uh what is
your advice for that oh my goodness well you know I feel like you have to own your
greatness you know and we have so many opportunities now and you have to
prepare yourself uh to take advantage of them when I um went through my
investiture for my very first Court appointment I was appointed as a trial
judge first um and my daughters were at that point seven and five or something
uh as part of my speech I gave them advice and I think it’s the same advice I would give to your listen listener um
I said you know girls you know if you take anything from my lessons from my life uh it is to work hard be kind have
faith and believe that anything is possible and I really mean that I mean I
it does make me return to the weight of it you know and and how you manage the
weight of it well you know you have to decide what it is that you want to do
and be you know anything anything that you want to do or anything that’s worth
doing takes a lot of effort a lot of work and so the question is what are you
willing to work for and once you’ve identified that then you just go for it
with all of your ability I’m going to play one more which is basically the bit of the same thing I just asked you but I
want to hear the student ask it as well how do you do it I don’t know if I
could be I don’t know if I could just be in her position I mean again I know again especially with her being the
first black woman she’s doing it for a reason that’s greater than herself but I wonder how does she not have those
moments where whether it be impostor syndrome or again whenever she is in one
of those moments that we saw her in a a little over a year ago where she she has to justify her actions my thing is just
how does she manage to stand so strong great question um you know I I
again go back to my parents how I was raised they’re instilling in me a very
strong sense of who I am and what I can do and so there now are very few
impostor syndrome moments because I’m prepared for this because I worked hard
for this when I did my Supreme Court um investigator uh Speech I said you know I
have a seat at the table now and I’m ready to work and I am so I just think
you you have to get to the point in your life where you’ve decided this is the
path I’m going to take and you put everything into preparing yourself to be
the best you can be and when the moment comes you’ll be ready when you wrote that at 8 years old
was the first time you started to see the idea of like having a public face um
and you quote in the book at length we de Boo’s uh double Consciousness about striving achieving black people and this
need to be two people at once do you still have that you at 8 years old you
had that you were putting that public face on and you talked about how it made you sort of go away by yourself
sometimes you still feel like you have toar I feel like there’s an a species of that that makes me actually
uh introverted in some way um even though I have loved being on the stage
and I love being um performing I think in my heart of hearts I like to be by
myself because it’s as I say in the book A so deep sigh of relief because you
don’t you feel like you don’t have to always be uh
representing um but you know I’m honored to do it in this position
kataji Brown Jackson is an associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court her Memoir is called Lovely One
Justice Jackson thank you so much thank you it was a pleasure to be here thank you