Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson opens up on family

JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s path to the Supreme Court was, as she tells it, unlikely. When President Biden nominated her in 2022 to replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer, she found the national spotlight, quote, “white hot.”

KETANJI BROWN JACKSON: I also was struck by the curiosity that lots of other people had about me after the confirmation process. And there were even biographers who approached me, wanting to write my story that – even that early on. And I thought, well, if anybody’s going to write my story, I want it to be me.

SUMMERS: Her new memoir is called, “Lovely One,” the meaning of her first and middle names given to her by her Aunt Carolynn. The story includes personal details Jackson has never shared widely before now. And it’s told through a multigenerational lens, tracing her path to the first Black woman to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court all the way back to her family’s roots in the segregated South.

JACKSON: Before I started this new chapter in my life, I really wanted to take a moment and pay tribute to the people and the circumstances that I felt were most responsible for this accomplishment.

SUMMERS: Justice Jackson told me about lessons she’ll never forget from the many strong figures in her life, including her beloved grandmother, Euzera Ross.

JACKSON: I talk in the book about how I recall going to church with her and with my mom and with my aunt. And it was really spiritually grounding for me as a young African American girl going to school in predominantly white spaces. We went to a Black church in Miami, and it was wonderful. And so seeing the other Black people there, I think, really was very affirming for me.

SUMMERS: There’s this story that you tell in your book about your grandmother, Euzera, and it has to do with this note that she’d written, though you didn’t know it at the time. And I would love to just hear you tell that story for us.

JACKSON: Well, this is a story that is burned into my memory. I was probably 8 years old or so. And this one particular Sunday in my grandmother’s kitchen, you know, I went in to wash my hands, and I see in the sink a note written on a napkin in misspelled English. It says something to the effect of broke sink, wait for repair. But it’s misspelled.

SUMMERS: Right.

JACKSON: And I’m 8 years old, and I thought it was really funny. Who doesn’t know how to spell, you know, wait or repair? And so I bring my mother in. And I’m laughing, and I’m going, ma, look at this note that I found. And she was irate. She was irate because she saw me as making fun of someone. And she said, you know, even though you have all the opportunities and you, you know, have learned how to spell, you’re not one bit better than anybody else. And I thought I raised you better than this. And I was devastated…

SUMMERS: I bet.

JACKSON: …Because all I ever wanted was to please my parents. And I had not realized that my grandmother did not have much formal education to that point and that she had written the note. I cried all afternoon, left the house, ran outside and wouldn’t come back in, and then eventually came back in and apologized. And it made me feel like, you know, so much of what I have and what I’ve been given is by the grace of God in a lot of ways. And that doesn’t make me any better than anyone else and that everyone should be kind and have that kind of empathy for others.

SUMMERS: You also write about your journey into parenthood and the struggles of parenthood. And one thing that you talk about in some detail in the book is your eldest daughter’s autism diagnosis. And I’d love to know more about that. But first, I just want to ask you, is this something your family has disclosed publicly before?

JACKSON: It has not been something that we disclosed publicly before. And this is so much a part of who we are as a family and who I have become as a human being. And this was something that we focused on when I decided to accept the president’s nomination. Because I felt that if I were to go forward and be the nominee for the Supreme Court, this might be something that reporters would find out.

SUMMERS: Yeah.

JACKSON: It would be something that was reported. And if my daughter was uncomfortable with it, I might have chosen not to pursue this position. But she encouraged me. And that gave me the courage, I think, to disclose it – not only part of the confirmation process internally, but publicly now as a part of the book. It was challenging, though, throughout her upbringing. And I just wanted to be honest, in part because I wanted people to understand that, as a working parent, you can manage even when you have challenging circumstances in terms of your family. And my daughter said, I’m not ashamed of it. I’m happy to have you tell the truth about our family.

SUMMERS: This next question is one that I have a feeling there are some people who will say I should not ask it of you. But it is something that you wrote about in your book, so I’m going to go there, and it is about your hair. It is something that I immediately noticed about you, perhaps because I spent so many years agonizing over whether to lock my own hair – wrestling with questions of, will I be seen as professional when I show up to interview someone or show up on their television? Will they see me as credible, or will they respect me? So I want to ask you about that journey. Because especially as I flip through the photos in your book, it wasn’t always sisterlocks. There was a journey that came into that and, I’m sure, a lot of thought.

JACKSON: Oh, absolutely. And the questions that you said that you wrestled with were 100% resonant with me in terms of how I also thought, especially being a lawyer, being at, you know, big law firms at times, wanting to be taken seriously and seen as a professional. But I have to tell you, I got to a point where I couldn’t do it any other way because there wasn’t enough time to do what I traditionally did with straightening my hair and curling my hair and doing all the self-care that is necessary to maintain…

SUMMERS: It is work.

JACKSON: It is work. And when I saw a woman who had – I didn’t even know the name sisterlocks, and I’ve had my hair locked now for, I think, 15 years.

SUMMERS: Wow.

JACKSON: But back then, you know, it wasn’t all that popular. But I saw this woman, and I was like, I want that (laughter). And I asked her – I chased her down, and I said, you know, who does your hair? What is it? And she gave me the name of her loctician, and I have used only this one woman for 15 years.

SUMMERS: That’s incredible. I want to bring it back now, if I can, to someone we talked about early in our conversation, and that is your beloved grandmother, who you wrote, she prayed so hard for you. She wanted so much for you. But she didn’t live to see you graduate from Harvard, to get married, to raise two beautiful girls, to be the first Black woman on the Supreme Court. How do you think she would feel about where you are today?

JACKSON: Oh, I think she would be so incredibly proud of me, knowing how much she prayed for me, knowing that she used to say all the time, you know, you are a blessed child. And I felt that way. And it was so much – I give so much tribute to her, not only in the book, but in my life. And I think she would have been enormously proud of me.

SUMMERS: Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. Her new memoir is “Lovely One.” Thank you so much.

JACKSON: Thank you so much, Juana. It was a pleasure to be here.

SUMMERS: And you can find more of my discussion with Justice Jackson about her life and the court’s future at npr.org.

(SOUNDBITE OF RIKARD FROM’S “LET ME TAKE YOU FOR A WALK”) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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