Newsman:President Joe Biden hosted Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson at the White House on Friday to celebrate her historic confirmation by the Senate to serve as the first Black woman on the Supreme Court.
With a tearful Jackson delivering a powerful message on perseverance,Ketanji Brown Jackson said she hopes her ascension to the court is a moment in which all Americans can take great pride.
“The path was cleared for me, so that I might rise to this occasion, and in the poetic words of Dr. Maya Angelou, I do so now while ‘bringing the gifts my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave,'” she said.
President Joe Biden stepped out onto the South Lawn, spoke before Jackson, calling it “not only a sunny day.”To cheers and applause, Biden stood with Vice President Kamala Harris — the first Black woman to hold that elected office — and Jackson at the event on the South Lawn.
“This is going to let so much sun shine on so many young women, so many young Black women,” Biden began.”We’re going to look back and see this as a moment of real change in American history.”
“We’re going to look back and see this as a moment of real change in American history,” Biden said, adding he had thought about the importance of nominating a Black woman to the Supreme Court “for a long, long time.”
The event kicked off Friday afternoon, scores of guests gathered, chatting and taking photos with a flag-draped South Portico behind them as the Marine Corps band played patriotic tunes. Jackson’s parents, Johnny and Ellery Brown, who grew up under segregation in the South, her husband, Patrick, a general surgeon, and their two daughters, Talia, 21, and Leila, 17, were front row to witness the historic moment.
“It has taken 232 years and 115 prior appointments for a Black woman to be selected to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States. But we’ve made it,” Ketanji Brown Jackson said clutching tissues tightly. “We’ve made it — all of us. All of us. And our children are telling me that they see now more than ever that here in America, anything is possible” she said.
“In my family, it took just one generation to go from segregation to the Supreme Court of the United States. And it is an honor, the honor of a lifetime, for me to have this chance to join the court, to promote the rule of law at the highest level, and to do my part to carry our shared project of democracy and equal justice under law forward into the future,” Jackson said.
President Biden in his remarks recalled the promise he made in the 2020 presidential campaign — ahead of the South Carolina primary — to nominate the court’s first Black woman.
“I could see it as a day of hope. A day of promise. A day of progress. A day when once again the moral arc of the universe — Barack used to quote all the time — bends a little more toward justice,” he said.
While he thanked the three Republicans by name for breaking party ranks to vote for Jackson, Biden blasted those on the committee for their treatment of his first nominee.
“It was verbal abuse, the anger, the constant interruptions, the vilest, baseless assertions and accusations,” Biden said. “In the face of it all, Judge Jackson showed the incredible character and integrity she possesses.”
Harris was the first to deliver remarks, calling it a “wonderful day” before a cheering crowd, and offering the public a powerful image of the first Black female vice president alongside the first Black woman to soon sit on the Supreme Court.
“The young leaders of our nation will learn from the experience, the judgment, the wisdom that you, Judge Jackson, will apply in every case that comes before you — and they will see, for the first time, four women sitting on that court,” Harris said to applause.
When Jackson is sworn in after Justice Stephen Breyer retires at the end of the term, Jackson will also serve on the first-ever high court where white men constitute a minority, and become the first former public defender and first Florida-raised judge to sit on the Supreme Court.
