U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson highlighted the importance of her Christian faith in her upbringing and “professional” and “personal” life as she reflects on her career following the release of her new memoir.
Jackson appeared at the 144th Annual Session of the National Baptist Convention in Baltimore, Maryland, Thursday to discuss her newly published memoir Lovely One. Jackson, who has served on the Supreme Court since 2022, declared, “My faith has sustained me in my professional life [and] in my personal life.”
Jackson described her faith as “very much what I leaned upon in getting to do this position.” She recalled how, when she gave a speech after President Joe Biden first nominated her for a seat on the bench, “the first thing I said was, ‘I need first to give thanks to God for delivering me to this point in my career.’”
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“I said, ‘I have been blessed beyond measure and that I know that I have only come this far by faith,’” she added. “This was something that I learned from so little when going to church with my grandmother.”
Brown said while her childhood Sundays were “traditional, grandmother cook a big dinner kind of thing in the middle of the day,” that “being in the church” was “the most important part of that experience.”
She brought up one of her fondest memories of her late grandmother, detailing how she took advantage of “the point in the service at her church where people could get up and say whatever they wanted” and “they could give testimony in the church” to say “the same thing every time.”
“I memorized it as a kid,” Brown explained. “She would stand up when it was her turn and she would say, ‘When I think of the goodness of Jesus and all He’s done for me, my soul cries out, Hallelujah! I thank God for saving me.’”
The crowd erupted into thunderous applause as Jackson recited her grandmother’s weekly prayer of thanksgiving. She concluded her remarks by sharing a Bible verse that her “grandmother used to say all the time.”
“To whom much is given, much is required,” Jackson asserted in response to a question asking if she had any advice for young people who wanted to become Supreme Court justices. While Jackson did not mention which part of the Bible the passage came from, it is found in Luke 12:48.
Jackson elaborated on how she has applied this particular Bible verse to her life: “For me, that … always meant that I had to work hard, that I had to be kind, that I had to have faith and believe that anything is possible. And those core values have sustained me.”
Released Tuesday, Lovely One traces Jackson’s “family’s ascent from segregation to her confirmation on America’s highest court within the span of one generation,” according to a description of the memoir compiled by Amazon. The title of the book reflects the fact that her name, “Ketanji Onyika,” means “Lovely One.”
Thursday’s appearance at the National Baptist Convention wasn’t the first time that Jackson has spoken at a faith-based gathering since becoming a Supreme Court Justice. Last year, she gave remarks at a ceremony marking the 60th anniversary of the bombing of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, by white supremacists.
