Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson Discusses New Memoir ‘Lovely One’ at Apollo Theater

NEW YORK (AP) — In one in all his first public appearances on behalf of her recently published memoirs“Charming”, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson didn’t generate much attention, but she made history: she will add her name to the ranks of artists like James Brown, Stevie Wonder and Smokey Robinson on the subject of singing at the Apollo Theater.

Reminiscing Tuesday night with interviewer Gayle King about her love of musical theater, Jackson skillfully crooned just a few lines from “The Wiz” — “When I think of home, I think of a place/Where the love overflows” — and interjected a favourite chant from “Schoolhouse Rock” — “I’m just a bill, yeah, I’m just a bill. And I’m sitting here on Capitol Hill.”

The large audience at the famous Harlem performing arts center cheered and sang together with the artist.

King promised — and kept her promise — to concentrate on Jackson’s personal story, not the law. Jackson spoke about her childhood in Miami, the origins of her name (it means “dear,” the title of a book), her undergraduate years at Harvard University, her interracial marriage to Dr. Patrick Jackson — who was within the audience Tuesday night — and her journey through the judicial system, culminating in 2022 when she became the primary black woman on the Supreme Court. “The roar of the ocean” in her ears was how she remembered the decision from President Joe Biden asking if she would fill the emptiness left by retiring Justice Stephen Breyer, to whom she had once clerked.

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Jackson explained Tuesday that she had been curious about it since she was a woman, when she and her father, Johnny Brown, would sit together at the dining room table, she with coloring books and he with the law books he was studying at the time. Her ambition grew in highschool when she learned about Constance Baker Motley, the primary black woman to serve within the federal judiciary.

“I remember this bond with this fantastic woman,” Jackson told King. “I thought, ‘Why stop at law? I could be a federal judge.’”

Jackson’s 405-page book weaves together family history, legal history and private history as she recounts her own improbable journey — a black woman rising to the very best court in a rustic where segregation was legal until the twentieth century. “Lovely One” often reads as a form of lesson or road map, what Jackson calls in her foreword “a testament to young women, people of color and aspirations everywhere, especially those who have nurtured lofty ambitions and stubbornly believed they could be achieved.”

She has endured aggressive questioning from Republican senators during her nominating hearings, and she or he now sits on one of the vital conservative and divisive courts in U.S. history, voting against such landmark rulings as granting partial legal immunity to former presidents. But Jackson has avoided naming names — beyond noting that Senator Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, went to law school along with her — or pointing fingers in her book, and on Tuesday night she balked when King pressed her to cite even one justice with whom she had clashed.

“I won’t answer that question,” she said with fun.

When King asked if the judges met socially, Jackson replied, “There are occasions to have lunch.”

Jackson spoke of staying calm during her confirmation hearings due to her determination, preparation and the realities of politics. The White House worked along with her at length to assist her anticipate questions that may otherwise have upset her. One aide advised her to have a selection: “You can be angry or you can be a Supreme Court justice.” Jackson also welcomed one other suggestion: Meet with senators before the hearings.

“Everybody was nice. They were polite, respectful in their interactions,” she said Tuesday night. “That was … very helpful during the hearings, because we were talking. So I said, ‘Oh, I get it. You’re not really talking to me,'” she said in her mind as I listened to them, “because we were talking. ‘You have to talk to your constituents or you have to talk to somebody else.'”