“It has taken 232 years and 115 prior appointments for a Black woman to be selected to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States. But we’ve made it,” newly confirmed Supreme Court justice Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson said as the White House celebrated her bipartisan confirmation.
“We’ve made it — all of us. All of us. And our children are telling me that they see now more than ever that here in America, anything is possible,” Jackson said alongside President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamila Harris on the South Lawn of the White House.
Jackson’s confirmation with a 53 to 47 vote means when she is sworn in this summer, she will be the first Black woman to serve on America’s highest court.
Upon her confirmation, President Biden called the vote a “historic moment” for the nation.
“We’ve taken another step toward making our highest court reflect the diversity of America,” Biden said in a Twitter post.
Jackson also cited poet Maya Angela as she reflected on the fulfillment of America’s promise
“The path was cleared for me so that I might rise to this occasion, and in the poetic words of Dr. Maya Angelou, I do so now while ‘bringing the gifts my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave,'” she said.
“In my family, it took just one generation to go from segregation to the Supreme Court of the United States. And it is an honor, the honor of a lifetime, for me to have this chance to join the court, to promote the rule of law at the highest level, and to do my part to carry our shared project of democracy and equal justice under law forward into the future,” Jackson said.
President Biden said Jackson’s rise to the highest court is “going to let so much sun shine on so many young women, so many young Black women,”
“We’re going to look back and see this as a moment of real change in American history.”
Harris, the first Black female vice president, hailed Jackson’s confirmation as a “wonderful day”.
