Support truly
independent journalism
Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is embarking on a high-profile, nationwide tour to promote her new memoir, “Lovely One.”
Jackson, 53, is using the book, publisher Random House says, to trace her family’s rise from segregation to her confirmation as the first Black woman on the nation's highest court in the span of one generation. “It is the story of the promise of America,” she said in a television interview that aired Sunday.
She also is the first public defender to serve as a justice and she delves into advancing in the legal profession as a woman of color and a mother balancing a demanding career and family life.
Since joining the court in June 2022, Jackson has been the most active participant in the argument sessions, according to the Empirical Scotus website. She has at times taken a liberal approach to originalism, a method of interpreting the Constitution more often used by the court's conservatives.
In her appearances off the court, she has embraced her history-making role, telling an audience on the day of her ceremonial swearing-in that she has “a seat at the table now and I’m ready to work.”
Jackson kicks off the book tour Tuesday at New York's Apollo Theater on the same day the book is published.
Just in the first week, Jackson will make stops at major entertainment venues in Washington, Atlanta, Miami, Seattle and San Francisco.
She reported receiving an advance of nearly $900,000 last year from Random House, putting herself in the company of two colleagues, Justices Clarence Thomas and Sonia Sotomayor, who each received advances of a million dollars or more for their memoirs.
The up-from-poverty accounts of Thomas’ “My Grandfather’s Son” and Sotomayor’s “My Beloved World” landed atop The New York Times’ bestseller list for nonfiction. Sotomayor has earned roughly $4 million for the memoir and children's books she has written since joining the court in 2009.
Last year, The Associated Press reported that Sotomayor's court staff was deeply involved in organizing speaking engagements to sell the books and also prodded colleges and universities to buy them.
The court has referred questions about Jackson's book tour to her publisher.
The Supreme Court adopted its first code of conduct last year in response to sustained criticism over undisclosed trips and gifts from wealthy benefactors to some justices.
The code lacks a means of enforcement and it sets no limit on income justices can earn from books they write. Other outside income from teaching, for example, is capped at about $30,000 a year. The justices are earning $298,500 this year for their work on the court, though Chief Justice John Roberts gets paid a little more.
“A binding code of ethics is pretty standard for judges,” Jackson told CBS' Sunday Morning." “And so I guess the question is, ‘Is the Supreme Court any different?’ And I guess I have not seen a persuasive reason as to why the court is different than the other courts.” She said she does not “have any problem with an enforceable code” and is considering supporting an enforcement mechanism “as a general matter,” but would not comment on “particular policy proposals.”
Democratic President Joe Biden has proposed an enforceable code of ethics.
Jackson began work on the book shortly after joining the court. The book’s title comes from the English translation of Ketanji Onyika, the name suggested by an aunt who at the time was a Peace Corps worker in West Africa.
“My parents really wanted to honor our heritage and asked her to send them a list of African names. And they picked that one, Lovely One, Ketanji Onyika, which is my given middle name,” she told CBS.
Jackson was born in the District of Columbia and grew up in Miami. She has traced her interest in the law to when she was in preschool and her father, Johnny Brown, was in law school and they would sit together at the dining room table, she with coloring books and he with law books. Her father became an attorney for the county school board and her mother, Ellery Brown, was a high school principal. She has a brother, nine years younger, who served in the Army, including in Iraq, and is now a lawyer.
Justice Neil Gorsuch also has been on the road this summer with his new book, “Over Ruled: The Human Toll of Too Much Law,” written with Janie Nitze, a former law clerk to Gorsuch. Gorsuch has reported receiving advances for the book totaling $500,000.
Yet another justice has a book in the works. Justice Amy Coney Barrett received $425,000 in 2021 as part of a book deal with Sentinel, a conservative imprint of Penguin Random House.
