Black women rally for Jackson's historic nomination

Seas of bright signs emblazoned with “Confirm KBJ” and “My Justice, she’s Black” have been erected as symbols of hope by Black women around the U.S. Capitol and in front of the Supreme Court this week as Senate confirmation hearings take place for Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson.

President Biden’s historic nomination of Jackson, who would be the first Black woman to serve on the court, has attracted supporters from all over the country. Members of Black sororities waved signs, and greeted each other with hopeful embraces. Beaming law students from historically Black colleges and universities, like Southern University in Baton Rouge, La., held up large “KBJ” letters. There was celebratory drumming and calls to action from various organizations led by Black women in front of the building where the current federal judge could sit one day.

“I’m excited to be out here early in the morning and late at night and just be joyful in my spirit about what she is going to mean to the court. Her voice has been absent,” said Leslie Watson Wilson, who attended the rally on behalf of People for the American Way, a progressive nonprofit organization.

Black women have been huddled around television screens and in front of devices as organizations like the Black Women’s Leadership Collective provided streaming for the hearings on its website to create an online community to watch the hearings and give analysis in real time.

The mobilization among Black women around Jackson started prior to Biden picking her as the nominee and it gained more traction when Jackson was named.

“From panels to an affirmation brunch to rallying outside of the Supreme Court to attending her confirmation hearing, we have hugged, chanted her name, cried, and danced,” said Keenan Austin Reed, former chief of staff for Rep. Donald McEachin, D-Va., and a co-founder of the Black Women’s Congressional Alliance, told Yahoo News. “It was Black women that called for a Black woman to be nominated to the Supreme Court. Black women in the White House worked to vet the nominee and prepared and staffed her through the process. Black women chiefs of staff, legislative directors and counsels in the United States Congress are advising their bosses through the hearings.”

On Monday, the first day of Jackson’s Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings, Jackson spoke about how much she was indebted to those who came before her, women like Judge Constance Baker Motley, the first African American woman appointed to the federal bench.

“And like Judge Motley, I have dedicated my career to ensuring that the words engraved on the front of the Supreme Court building — ‘Equal Justice Under Law’ — are a reality and not just an ideal,” Jackson said. “Thank you for this historic chance to join the highest Court, to work with brilliant colleagues, to inspire future generations, and to ensure liberty and justice for all.”

During this week’s hearings, Jackson, who has served on the United States District Court for the District of Columbia and who currently sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, credited a Black woman for helping her persevere during a line of questioning from Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif as she reflected on a time where she was grappling to find her place in predominantly white spaces like Harvard University.

Reed described the ascension of Jackson, who has also had to juggle her career with being a wife and mother, as “deeply personal” to Black women and a reminder of “our own journey.”

“When you can see someone who looks like you in a role, with hair like yours, an African name like yours, skin like yours, it expands the idea of who you believe you can be,” Reed said. “So many of us, like Judge Jackson, don’t have the fortune of seeing someone do it before you do. I hope this creates an endless room of young Black women who see her and can dream their biggest dream and believe it to be possible.”

Despite the excitement over the historic nomination, the climate around Supreme Court hearings in recent years has become especially contentious, especially after Republicans refused to grant nominee Merrick Garland a hearing or vote in 2016 and the polarizing appointment of Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Black congressional staffers have sought to protect Jackson from character attacks by conservative pundits.

“By seeing us rallying around Judge Jackson, we educate the world on our value. We are intentional about calling out her achievements and unabashedly stating how qualified she is. The world needs to see how loved she is and that she is not alone in this fight,” Reed said.

The Congressional Black Caucus, which has 28 female members, has created a “war room” that will serve as “wind beneath her wings” during the historic proceedings, as the L.A. Times reported.

“We will be on every national platform, whether invited or not,” CBC chairwoman Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, said. “We will impose ourselves there because the nation will be watching. We wanted to make sure that we were positioned, we had a voice and that we wanted the hearings to start immediately, and that we were going to be dealing with anything that was not aboveboard in the hearings and in her confirmation.”

During the proceedings, Republican lawmakers were criticized for, in the words of Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durban, D-Ill., showcasing “talking points for the November election.” Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Josh Hawley, D-Mo., Tom Cotton, R-Ark., Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., painted Jackson as soft on crime and an advocate of critical race theory (CRT) for schoolchildren.

On Tuesday, Cruz’s line of questioning relied heavily on CRT, an academic approach to the study of systemic racism that some critics have called anti-white. The Texas senator, a potential 2024 presidential candidate, questioned her place on the board of Georgetown Day School, a private school established by Jewish and Black families in D.C. during the age of segregation. At one point, Cruz, against the backdrop of a page from Ibrahim Kendi’s children’s book “Anti-Racist Baby,” asked Jackson if she agreed that “babies are racist.” Cruz says the book has been recommended reading at Georgetown Day.

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., peppered his engagement with observations of Jackson, calling her “very articulate” and “intelligent,” comments that some have described as patronizing.

Jackson was repeatedly interrupted by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., with Graham even storming out of the hearing after a fierce line of questioning over Jackson’s previous work as a public defender representing terror detainees at Guantánamo Bay .

Hawley, who has emerged as a White House contender for 2024, cherry-picked a handful of child pornography cases from Jackson's career to hammer away at Jackson’s alleged sentencing leniency on sex offender cases.

But Jackson often steered the ship back to her responsibility as a judge to maintain a neutral posture and to interpret and apply the law to the facts of the case. She also rebutted many of the GOP attacks on her sentencing recommendations by saying her role required her to defer to Congress’s outdated federal sentencing guidelines.

“What I regret is that in a hearing about my qualifications to be a justice on the Supreme Court, we’ve spent a lot of time focusing on this small subset of my sentences,” Jackson told Hawley after hours of questioning.

On Wednesday, Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., who is Black, relayed a message from a Black woman who stopped him during his morning jog to explain what it meant to see Jackson as a nominee. In a teary exchange, he described seeing his mother reflected in Jackson.

“I see my ancestors and yours. Nobody’s going to steal the joy of the woman in the street. Nobody’s going to steal that joy. You have earned this spot. You are worthy. You are a great American.”

Beatty, who made remarks at Thursday’s hearing, reiterated the importance of representation on this historic landmark for all Americans, but especially children of color.

“I think it is an extremely powerful and needed message that we send out to all little girls, but specifically those who are of color. And I think what you saw yesterday, builds for our children, grandchildren and those yet [to be born] because even today, we are fighting for things that we were fighting for in 1963, ’64, ’65 and ’68,” said Beatty.

The Senate Judiciary Committee will meet on March 24 to set a date for vote to advance Jackson's nomination. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said on Thursday that he hopes to hold a final confirmation vote before the Senate’s spring recess, which begins on April 8.