Greeted by a standing ovation in McFarlin Auditorium, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson took the stage to share how her upbringing in Miami, Florida, led her to sit on the highest court in the country at SMU’s final Tate Lecture of the 44th season on May 12.

Starting with an excerpt from her 2024 memoir “Lovely One,” Jackson recounted the moment she was sworn in to the Supreme Court in June 2022, becoming the first Black woman to serve as a justice by replacing Justice Stephen Breyer, whom she had clerked for 23 years before.

“Nominated by President Joe Biden four months earlier, I, the daughter of African American parents who had come of age in the segregated south during the 1950s and early 1960s, would become the 116th justice and the first Black woman to sit on the Supreme Court in its 233-year history,” Jackson said.

Jackson sat down with moderator Tina Perry, president of the Oprah Winfrey Network, exploring formative moments and role models in the memoir that have shaped her values and successful legal career. She attributed her status as a justice as “a generational effort,” sharing gratitude for the experiences her parents and grandparents faced living in the South.

“I think those predecessors had the vision. They worked in their lifetime, never really to see these kinds of opportunities, but they knew it was possible,” Jackson said. “They marched, they lobbied and they did all the things to make it possible for me to be able to do what I’m doing now.”

Jackson’s parents were public school teachers who instilled the importance of confidence, work ethic and education in her, launching her on a path to success.

“If there were music lessons, I was doing music lessons; if there were swimming lessons, I was doing swimming lessons,” Jackson said. “My mother had me doing all of the things, and teaching me from a very young age, that I could really do anything I wanted.”

At the encouragement of her mother, eight-year-old Jackson signed up to recite the poem “For My People” by Margaret Walker at the Miami-Dade County Youth Fair and Exposition. This moment began Jackson’s love for public speaking, as she went on to become an orator in high school. She even won a national championship in original oratory, attending the tournament in place of her high school graduation.

“I never walked, I didn’t graduate as a senior because I had to choose between the debate tournament and I think I did the right thing,” Jackson said, laughing.

Starting thousands of miles away from her support system as a freshman at Harvard College was an isolating experience, but one that was changed by a “chance encounter.”

“I’m walking across campus at dusk, and I’m on the sidewalk and a Black woman I did not know was coming towards me, and I guess she saw on my face the sadness and feeling pretty despondent,” Jackson said. “As we crossed, she leaned over and said, ‘Persevere.'”
Things started to turn around after this small gesture from the woman made an impact on Jackson.
“One word, then suddenly it opened a little window,” Jackson said.

Jackson went on to attend Harvard Law, leading a successful legal career and becoming a federal court district judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Following the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in 2016, Jackson’s then 11-year-old daughter, Leila, wrote a letter to President Obama advocating for her mother’s appointment to the Supreme Court.

“I was floored at the fact that she would endorse me, first of all, but I was thinking, ‘I am raising a young woman who isn’t afraid to speak her mind, even to the President of the United States,” Jackson said.

Just six years later, Leila’s letter became reality as President Joe Biden nominated Jackson to the court in February 2022.
Having clerked for Breyer during his tenure as justice, Jackson was familiar with the procedures of the Supreme Court, but was initially surprised by the formalities of the interactions between the justices.

“There are lots of moments in court procedure where it’s just the justices and the courts are not involved,” Jackson said. “When you go to conference, for example, which is the meeting that the justices have to determine what’s gonna happen in a case, to vote on the case. It’s just the justices.”

Jackson was also surprised by a ritual the justices do before they go on the bench.

“We do this ritual that’s just the nine of us, where we shake each other’s hands, everybody else’s hand, before we go out on the bench and before we go into conference, which is kind of interesting and surprising,” Jackson said.

Listening to Jackson’s story humanized her to Valentina Barros, a freshman pre-law major working as a student usher and marketing manager for the Tate Lecture Committee.

“I’ve been studying the Supreme Court, so to me, at first, justices seemed like they were just these super wise, incredible, not even human people,” Barros said. “But just getting to hear her story, it’s really inspiring seeing how, first, the value of people along the way, like her mom and her daughter, and just seeing how real and vulnerable she is.”

Another student who was touched by Jackson’s vulnerability was Megan Manning, a junior majoring in political science and corporate communication and public affairs. As a Black student interested in law and politics, she really wanted to see Jackson at SMU.

“I really enjoyed hearing a lot about her backstory,” Manning said. “I feel like there was a lot of overlap between my life and hers, so getting to see what she went through and then see where she is now was really inspiring.”

Keaton Steen, a freshman political science and economics major, said it was also interesting to hear about the relationships between justices.

“What stood out to me was how both Justice Jackson and the two justices [Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch] that came before her [recently to SMU] pointed out how all of the justices, regardless of differences of opinion, are very cordial with one another,” Steen said. “They try and be friends, they try and have fun outside of the court and they recognize that law isn’t just about rulings, it’s also about respecting one another.”