Books
Review of Kentanji Brown Jackson's 'The Lovely One' Acknowledges the Mentors on Her Path
The Supreme Court justice’s memoir is deeply personal and full of hope, and highlights a fairy-tale marriage to her college boyfriend.
Updated 2024-Sep-26 23:34
A 2022 photograph shows Ketanji Brown Jackson, a Black woman in a cobalt blue jacket, smiling broadly and lifting her right hand to take an oath at a congressional hearing.
Since she took office Jackson has received praise for her boldness as a young member of the liberal minority as one law professor put it she means business.
Reading Supreme Court opinions will give you a better insight into her relationship with other judges compared to this book.
And Clarence Thomas are not mentioned at all and the other judges are only briefly discussed. Lovely One is written in a formal but personal style.
The judge recounts her romantic tale with Boston Brahmin surgeon Patrick Jackson whom she met in college and their struggles raising two daughters one of whom has autism spectrum disorder while juggling demanding work schedules.
Breastfeeding and pumping bring discomfort while naps are taken in a Safeway parking lot. She describes how the patented Sisterlocks technique has simplified her hair care routine along with the bold necklaces that complement her outfits reminiscent of Ruth Bader Ginsburg s iconic collars.
Readers who were let down by Breyer s recent uninteresting addition to the popular Supreme Court book scene Reading the Constitution will be pleased to find him mentioned here in biking gear suggesting French eateries.
LOVELY ONE: A Memoir by Ketanji Brown JacksonJustice Ketanji Brown Jackson handed down many important decisions on her way to becoming the first Black woman appointed to the nation’s highest court in 2022.But perhaps the most astute was rejecting a career in the magazine industry before anyone could see it was dying.
In a packed but fast moving new memoir Lovely One Jackson tells how 30 years before during a brief stint as a reporter researcher at Time she suggested that a top editor might want to send someone to cover Hurricane Andrew.
Oh we don’t do weather stories he replied dismissively of the storm that would cause $27 billion in damage including ripping the roofs off most homes on her parents’ street in Miami.
Win or lose a case the law was logical and understandable she writes whereas in journalism the criteria for one story being chosen over another seemed subjective and often somewhat arbitrary.
Subjective? Supreme Court cases? Never. Jackson also considered becoming a Broadway actress teaching herself to sing for a college revue about Billie Holiday and her book could probably be optioned for a bio musical itself.
Imagine the big Immunity number! Lovely One is about motivation and mentors swooshing through a résumé without apparent flaw.
It’s a great glass elevator of uplift. The title is the translation of Jackson’s given name Ketanji Onyika a phrase from an untraced African dialect suggested by her Aunt Carolynn a missionary.
Ketanji was born in Washington D. C. On Sept. 14 the same date as Constance Baker Motley the first Black female federal judge who became her personal heroine and forever role model.
Her father Johnny was a school board attorney her mother Ellery became a principal after teaching science and little Ketanji was an enthusiastic pupil a Mama pleasing little sponge whose foundational texts included Danny Dunn and the Homework Machine and the blessedly inclusive Schoolhouse Rock! Her younger brother Ketajh was more of a risk taker he became a drug enforcement detective in the Baltimore unit that inspired The Wire and served in Operation Enduring Freedom before settling down to nice relaxing work in commercial litigation.
The family’s ancestors were enslaved on plantations across the South and the arc from there to here is majestic.
Jackson describes vividly her maternal grandfather Horace who got fed up with chauffeuring white customers in the Jim Crow era and started a landscaping business in Florida and her grandmother Euzera a housekeeper turned nurse’s aide.
They moved from a community on the edge of Miami known as Colored Town to raise their five children in a public works project called Liberty Square which at Christmas rang out with the sound of roller skates on asphalt.
Jackson focuses more on maintaining a balance between work and personal life with a slighter emphasis on the principles of justice although there are some important differences.
One example is her Uncle Thomas who was not involved in violence and played a minor role in a small drug operation.
He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole which is longer than some murderers after being found with 14 kilos of cocaine in his car following a few minor infractions.
A friend represented him for free Obama pardoned him but he passed away shortly after being freed from 28 years in jail.
Jackson has often thought about him and other defendants with the phrase There but for the grace of God go I.
