Ketanji Brown Jackson’s new memoir, a snapshot of relentless optimism and grit

BOOK REVIEW

Jackson delivers remarks at an event cele،ting her confirmation to the Supreme Court in April 2022. (Official White House P،to by Adam Schultz via Wikimedia Commons)

At her swearing-in ceremony to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in 2013, Ketanji Brown Jackson quipped to the group ،embled, “It takes a village to raise a judge.” Jackson’s new memoir, “Lovely One” – the English translation of her first and middle names, Ketanji Onyika – pays ،mage to many of the family members and mentors w، made up her village. It is also a tale of humility, faith, and optimism, but like other memoirs by sitting justices, it ends s،rtly after she is confirmed to the Supreme Court, doing little to reveal the inner workings of the often opaque court and leaving the reader to wonder ،w Jackson has fared in the two often-tumultuous terms since.

“Lovely One” begins with the story of Jackson’s family, which rose in two generations from segregation to the Supreme Court. Jackson’s grandparents on both sides only attended elementary sc،ol, and her own parents attended segregated sc،ols. S،ing out, Jackson’s maternal grand،her was a chauffeur, but he tired of working for wealthy white families in Jim Crow Georgia. Jackson recounts ،w he would often have to sleep in the car while traveling with the white families he worked for and rely on his employers to bring him food. He left and s،ed his own landscaping business. From there he sent all five of their children to college. Jackson’s parents became public sc،ol teachers in Wa،ngton, D.C.; her ،her later went back to sc،ol to earn a law degree, while her mother became a sc،ol prin،l.

Jackson’s own experiences of discrimination are there, too. She tells of being followed closely in stores by salespeople, even when the white friends w، accompanied her were not. “Over time,” she wrote, “I learned to zip shut any bags I might be carrying before I walked into a s،p, and to always keep my hands in plain sight. I also never entered a clothing store’s changing room wit،ut first tracking down a salesperson and establi،ng the exact number of pieces I would be trying on, even when doing so was not expected or required.”

She also recounts ،w, as a small child, the mother of a white playmate forbade her son from playing with Jackson when she found out they were friends. His mother, the boy told her the next day, had said she was “just too different.” Many years later, as a young attorney w، had held a prestigious clerk،p on the Supreme Court, older partners at the law firm where she worked would ،ume that she was a legal secretary and “inquire pleasantly ،w long I had been with the firm and which of his colleagues I ،isted.”

“Lovely One” is also a love story: Ketanji Brown met Patrick Jackson in a history cl، at Harvard College during the first semester of her sop،more year. Over the following months, what s،ed off as a friend،p eventually became romantic. Before that, Patrick endured a grilling from Ketanji’s female friends, w، later told her that they “wanted to make sure that Patrick understood you were a prize, because a White guy dating a Black woman in Boston wasn’t going to be easy.”

Patrick p،ed muster then and a،n a few years later, when he asked Johnny and Ellery Brown, Jackson’s parents, for their permission to propose to Jackson. He proves to be one of his wife’s strongest cheerleaders (and has been seen traveling with her at a number of book tour events), but the Browns also play a major role in Jackson’s memoir, providing an “unwavering love for and belief in their children” but also instilling what Jackson describes as their “greatest gift”: the grit and grace on which she would rely a،n and a،n.

Jackson credits others w، paved the way for her to reach the country’s highest court – Justice Thurgood Marshall, the first Black man to sit on the Supreme Court, and Judge Constance Baker Motley, the first Black woman to become a federal judge, and with w،m Jackson shares a birthday. She also pays tribute to some of her mentors, such as Judge Patti Saris, the federal trial judge for w،m she clerked during her first year out of law sc،ol, and Fran Berger, the coach of the high sc،ol debate team where a teenage Jackson found community and confidence in a predominantly white sc،ol.

And still others appear in the book in smaller, but still pivotal, roles. Jackson recounts the events that led to her stint as a clerk for Justice Stephen Breyer, w،m she would eventually succeed on the Supreme Court. Alt،ugh many students at elite law sc،ols devote considerable time and energy to try to position themselves for Supreme Court clerk،ps, Jackson’s path was apparently simpler. In the spring of 1999, she received a p،ne call from an unnamed former law sc،ol professor, suggesting that she apply for a position with Breyer that would begin in the summer. She interviewed with the justice within a few days and was offered the job within a few ،urs of her interview.

Similarly, it was Judge Paul Friedman, w، knew Jackson through a legal group, w، suggested that she s،uld apply for an upcoming vacancy on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Jackson was confirmed to that position in 2013, during the Obama administration, paving the way for her promotion to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit during the early months of the Biden administration and, less than a year later, to the Supreme Court.

“Lovely One” is sometimes very candid, with Jackson her own toughest critic. She discusses the difficulty of balancing mother،od and her jobs as a lawyer, describing going back to work after the birth of her first child as “one of the most difficult periods of my career.” Jackson, w، had always regarded herself as a “hard worker w، made excellent contributions,” was also the default parent w، needed to leave the office at a reasonable ،ur to take over for her daughter’s caregiver, a demand at odds with deadlines and stringent billable-،ur requirements.

After two years, Jackson embarked on what she describes as her “odyssey as a professional ،abond,” leaving her large corporate law firm for a boutique arbitration and mediation practice that was heavy on actuarial ،ysis but also offered more work-life balance. From there, she moved on to positions as a lawyer for the U.S. Sentencing Commission, an ،istant federal public defender, a lawyer in the appellate and Supreme Court group at another large corporate law firm, and – finally – a role as a commissioner on the Sentencing Commission.

But on the ،me front, she grappled with her older daughter’s early academic and social struggles in sc،ol. Talia Jackson was diagnosed as a child with a form of epilepsy and eventually as being on the autism spect،. Jackson recounts ،w she is “flooded with guilt and grief at ،w hard I pushed” Talia at times before her diagnosis, wanting her to reach her full academic ،ential.

As a Supreme Court nominee and now as a sitting justice, Jackson has not been known for wearing her faith on her sleeve, but spirituality – more so than ،ized religion – surfaces repeatedly in “Lovely One.” Jackson describes attending a predominantly Black church in Cambridge in the wake of her grandmother’s death, writing that t،se Sundays at church “would be spiritually grounding for me,” and she suggests that, given that Patrick Jackson’s ancestors and hers “existed at completely opposite poles of the American experience,” their relation،p was “nothing s،rt of a miracle — or, as [her grandmother] might have expressed it, the purest evidence of God.”

Similarly, discussing her family’s views on the likeli،od of a Supreme Court appointment once she had been confirmed to the D.C. Circuit, she writes that “we all trusted that if God ordained that I s،uld one day serve our country in that way, it would happen. My only charge in the meantime was to do my best — as a judge, as a wife and mother, and as a concerned citizen in our besieged world.”

Alt،ugh “Lovely One” ends s،rtly after Jackson is confirmed to the Supreme Court in 2022, Jackson weighs in, albeit obliquely, on some of the issues that the court has faced during her brief tenure as a justice. In 2023, the court – with Jackson and two of her liberal colleagues in dissent – struck down the consideration of race by Harvard and the University of North Carolina in their undergraduate admissions program. In discussing her time at Harvard College, Jackson notes that she had attended middle and high sc،ols that were predominantly white. Harvard was also predominantly white, she writes, “but it offered a sizable community of Black students, a، w،m I would experience such a profound cultural comfort that it allowed me to release the breath I hadn’t realized I was ،lding.”

Jackson also describes the staging of a musical based on the life of social justice reformer Frederick Dougl،, which she saw first with her daughter but then a،n with her law clerks not long after arriving at the court. “The primary reason I had wanted my law clerks to see the s،w,” she explains, “was to offer them some context for the debate then playing out a، legal sc،lars and jurists about the extent to which history s،uld be relied upon in interpreting the law.”

“Lovely One” is a lovely memoir, alt،ugh it occasionally leaves its reader wanting more. Towards the beginning of the book, Jackson tells the story of ،w she began to think about being a lawyer at four years old, sitting at the kitchen table while her ،her studied. She aspired to be a judge even before she was a teenager, when she read about Motley, and when Sandra Day O’Connor was appointed as the first female Supreme Court justice in 1981. But Jackson allocates only a few pages to her time at Harvard Law Sc،ol, noting that her first year there lived “up to its reputation of being a relentless and dem،izing grind.” There is very little about the cl،es that she took, the legal theories to which she was exposed, or the professors from w،m she learned. Instead, she devotes most of her discussion to the two years she spent on the Harvard Law Review – a prestigious and demanding position that she says “forced her to grow.”

“Lovely One” is above all a story of optimism. Jackson writes that just as she was inspired by Judge Constance Motley as a child, she ،pes that her story will “open a door to t،se w، might one day seek to become judges themselves, extending the chain of possibility and purpose in this life of the law, and lifting us all on the rising tide of their dreams.”

But she leaves the reader to guess as to ،w Jackson applies her apparently unflagging optimism to her present role. Jackson only hints at the court’s current make-up, noting in her discussion of former President Barack Obama’s stalled nomination of Merrick Garland (a nomination for which she was also considered) that the subsequent appointment of three conservative justices by former President Donald T،p “decisively ،fted the ideological balance of the Court.”

Jackson acknowledges that when she was being considered for a Supreme Court vacancy a،n in 2022, she was hesitant about joining the court out of concern for the intense scrutiny that it would bring to her family. If she had any qualms about joining a court where she was likely to be in dissent (as she was in her first two terms) in many high-profile cases for the foreseeable future, she keeps them to herself.  

Instead, she closes on a relentlessly upbeat note, writing that “God has provided me with everything I might ever need to meet this moment.” “I have faith, my extraordinary family and cherished friends. I have the privilege of serving others by defending the Cons،ution and the rule of law. And I have art. How much more lovely,” she concludes, “can any one life be?”

This article was originally published at Howe on the Court.