Lovely One - A Memoir - Ketanji Brown Jackson

With this unflinching account, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson invites readers into her life and world, tracing her family’s ascent from segregation to her confirmation on America’s highest court within the span of one generation.

Named “Ketanji Onyika,” meaning “Lovely One,” based on a suggestion from her aunt, a Peace Corps worker stationed in West Africa, Justice Jackson learned from her educator parents to take pride in her heritage since birth. She describes her resolve as a young girl to honor this legacy and realize her dreams: from hearing stories of her grandparents and parents breaking barriers in the segregated South, to honing her voice in high school as an oratory champion and student body president, to graduating magna cum laude from Harvard, where she performed in musical theatre and improv and participated in pivotal student organizations.

Here, Justice Jackson pulls back the curtain, marrying the public record of her life with what is less known. She reveals what it takes to advance in the legal profession when most people in power don’t look like you, and to reconcile a demanding career with the joys and sacrifices of marriage and motherhood.

Through trials and triumphs, Justice Jackson’s journey will resonate with dreamers everywhere, especially those who nourish outsized ambitions and refuse to be turned aside. This moving, openhearted tale will spread hope for a more just world, for generations to come.

About the Author

Ketanji Brown Jackson was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in Miami, Florida. She received her undergraduate and law degrees, both with honors, from Harvard University, then served as a law clerk for three federal judges, including Associate Justice Stephen G. Breyer of the Supreme Court of the United States. Jackson subsequently practiced law in the private sector, worked as an attorney and later as Vice Chair and Commissioner of the U.S. Sentencing Commission, and served as an assistant federal public defender. In 2012, President Barack Obama nominated Jackson to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Elevated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 2021, Jackson made history in 2022 when President Joseph Biden nominated her as an Associate Justice. The first Black woman ever confirmed to the Supreme Court of the United States, she took her seat on June 30, 2022.