Jackson’s family: Miami segregation to precipice of Supreme Court in ‘one generation’
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson reflected Tuesday how within “one generation” her family has gone from experiencing segregation in Miami’s public schools to her potential confirmation as the first Floridian on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Jackson’s reflection on her Miami roots and the city’s civil rights history stemmed from a question about a speech she delivered in 2020 at the University of Chicago School of Law in which she quoted Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
“My parents when they were growing up in Miami, Florida, attended and had to attend racially segregated schools because by law when they were young white children and Black children were not allowed to go to school together,” Jackson told Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee who had posed a question about whether she still agreed with King’s dream that people would be judged “by the content of their character” rather than their race and that she inherited a world that had been transformed by the civil rights movement.
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“My reality when I was born in 1970 and went to school in Miami, Florida, was completely different. I went to a diverse public junior high school, high school, elementary school,” Jackson, 51, continued.
“And the fact that we had come that far was to me a testament to the hope and the promise of this country, the greatness of America, that in one generation — one generation — we could go from racially segregated schools in Florida to have me sitting here as the first Floridian to ever be nominated to the Supreme Court of the United States.”
Grassley, 88, the oldest member of the Senate, said he was glad that the country had the opportunity to hear Jackson’s reflection on the experience.
Jackson has repeatedly reflected on her Miami upbringing during the confirmation process, speaking Monday about her father’s studies at the University of Miami School of Law and her formative time on the debate team at Miami Palmetto High School.
In addition to highlighting her Florida ties, the exchange with Grassley also represented one of the most significant reflections on race so far in the historic confirmation process. Jackson would be the first Black woman to ever serve on the court and just the third Black justice.
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Jackson’s Florida family came up several times during the hearing.
“I am here standing on the shoulders of generations of Americans who never had anything close to this kind of opportunity — from my grandparents who had just a grade-school education but instilled in my parents the importance of learning and my parents, who I’ve mentioned here many times already, who were the first in their families to go to college,” Jackson said Tuesday afternoon. “So this nomination against that backdrop is significant to a lot of people.”
Earlier in the day, she referenced that two of her uncles served as police officers, including her uncle Calvin Ross, who rose through the ranks to become Miami’s police chief in the 1990s, in response to a question from Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., about how being related to law enforcement officers has shaped her views.
“I remember very well we would go to my grandmother’s house on Sundays, and she would make a big dinner for our family. And my uncles would sometimes come off of their shifts, so I see in my mind their uniforms coming in and they would always — they’d be carrying their weapons and they’d take them off and put them way up high on the china cabinet so the kids couldn’t get to them,” Jackson said. “And I remember feeling very proud of them and the service they provided.”
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This story was originally published March 22, 2022 at 10:49 AM.
