The Week in Ideas: From segregation to the Supreme Court in a single generation ~ INFO IMAGES

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By Ruth Marcus
Deputy editorial page editor

From segregation to the Supreme Court in the span of a single generation. So noted incoming justice Ketanji Brown Jackson before a jubilant crowd assembled on the South Lawn of the White House on Friday, the day after the Senate voted 53 to 47 to confirm her as the first Black woman on the Supreme Court.

That powerful, optimistic line caught the attention of columnist Michele L. Norris. "Sometimes history can be summed up in a single sentence of naked simplicity," Norris wrote, calling Jackson's words "a powerful homage to both her journey and that of the country she serves."

But as much as Jackson's point was to lift up, Norris argued that it is equally important to check facts ― to remember the ugly parts of our nation's history and recognize how they persist into the present. "To understand the full importance of her ascent," she wrote of Jackson, "you need to dwell on the word that sits like a leaden anchor at the center of that sentence: segregation."

Because even the "vestiges of slavery and segregation are still with us," the party that opposed Jackson ― that distorted her record and denigrated her fitness to serve ― argues for turning our back on the ugliness of the past. Because to recognize the truth of that history is to understand "how the waves of disrespect hurled at Jackson in the past month cut too close to the casual and constant denigration of Black people, and especially Black women, over centuries in this country."

But as much as Norris offered a somber counterpoint, she underscored the ultimate triumph of Jackson's confirmation: "Her name will someday grace schools, libraries and public buildings; her face will smile down from massive public murals; her words will likely be carved into stone for schoolchildren to memorize. They cannot stop that."