In Miami, a new map entry: ‘Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson Street’ after hometown justice
Part of Eureka Drive in the Miami suburbs will carry the name of the U.S. Supreme Court’s newest justice, south of where Ketanji Brown Jackson went to high school and near where her parents still live.
Miami-Dade commissioners voted unanimously to create “Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson Street” between Old Cutler Road and Caribbean Boulevard where Cutler Bay and Palmetto Bay meet. Six Democrats and five Republicans supported the motion for the honor for Jackson, an appointee of President Joe Biden who is the first Black woman to serve on the high court.
“The representation this justice signifies is not only for women like me,” said sponsor Danielle Cohen Higgins, a lawyer and the only Black woman on the County Commission. “It is for my daughter and our daughters. This is a very, very big deal, and we, as an entire county ... should be extremely proud.”
Jackson graduated from Palmetto Senior High in 1988 as class president before heading to Harvard University and a career in law, including as a public defender and a federal judge. Her parents, Johnny and Ellery Brown, longtime administrators in Miami-Dade’s school system, live several blocks away from the stretch of Eureka Drive that will carry their daughter’s name.
Before the vote, several members of the public urged commissioners to move forward with the honor for Jackson’s role in legal history.
“When I was a Black girl growing up in Miami-Dade County, nobody told me this was possible,” said Theresa Therilus, a graduate of Harvard Law School and city manager in North Miami, who spoke on behalf of the Harvard Alumni Association of South Florida. “And her name on the street will tell others that it is possible.”
This story was originally published October 6, 2022 at 6:02 PM.