In her third term as a Supreme Court justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson came out swinging.
The high court’s newest member took up boxing, appeared on Broadway, published her memoir, and wrote more than 24 opinions — second only to Justice Clarence Thomas. She dominated oral arguments, querying opposing counsel more than any of her peers.
Justice Jackson — the court’s first Black woman justice — says she relishes the “privilege” to tell the world her opinions and to do it without flinching.
“I’m aware that people are watching,” Jackson said during a conversation about her book, “Lovely One,” at the Global Black Economic Forum in New Orleans, Louisiana.
WATCH: One-on-one with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson: ABC News Live PRIME tonight. 7p/9p ET streaming on Hulu, Disney+, and ABC News apps.
“I think my work is obviously a very important challenge for me, that I’m saving my energy at times to direct my attention to writing as clearly as I can, to speaking as clearly as I could, about the issues that matter,” the justice told moderator ABC News Live “Prime” anchor Linsey Davis.
Jackson’s book chronicles her journey from early childhood in Miami, Florida, to college in the Ivy League, a Supreme Court clerkship for Justice Stephen Breyer, work as a federal public defender and member of the U.S. Sentencing Commission, and appointment to the high court.
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“The timing of my birth I think is critical to understanding my sense of self-confidence and the way in which I move through the world,” Jackson told Davis. “1970 was within four or five years of the passage of the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and the end of Jim Crow segregation.
“The idea of giving up on yourself was never really a choice for me,” she added, “because my parents, who were public school teachers when I was born, decided that they were going to ensure that I knew that I could do anything I wanted to.”
Now, as a member of the court’s three-justice liberal minority, Justice Jackson faces new challenges. She was the member of the court most often in dissent last term and generated significant public attention for pointed rhetoric in her writings.
“The best part [of the job] is the privilege of having the opportunity to be in this position at this moment,” she said, “being able to articulate my views with respect to the law. That is also, in a way, a challenge, because it is long hours, difficult work.”
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Jackson said she reflects on an encounter she had during her freshman year of college at Harvard, retold in the book, when another Black student who she hadn’t seen before and hasn’t seen since, passed by and simply said, “persevere.”
“It felt like being given a lifeline,” she told Davis. “A Black woman who I didn’t know, who just whispered that to me as we passed each other. … That kind of encouragement is something that we should all be giving one another in this very challenging time.”
