'we have come a long way'
Jackson: 'It has taken 232 years' for a Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court, but 'we've made it'
President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris held a historic White House event on Friday officially introducing the first Black woman ever confirmed to serve on the Supreme Court.
Biden and Harris spoke on the South Lawn of the White House after Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson was confirmed to her Supreme Court seat on Thursday in a 53-47 vote. She was the first Black woman to be nominated to a Supreme Court seat in U.S. history.
"It has taken 232 years and 115 prior appointments for a Black woman to be selected to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States, but we've made it," Jackson said. "We've made it, all of us."
Jackson described her confirmation as the "greatest honor of my life," and she said she is "standing on the shoulders" of "generations of Americans who never had anything close to this kind of opportunity." She also described herself as the "lucky first inheritor of the dream of liberty and justice for all" and reflected that her confirmation is a moment all Americans can "take great pride" in.
"We have come a long way toward perfecting our union," she said. "In my family, it took just one generation to go from segregation to the Supreme Court of the United States."
Harris said Friday that while presiding over Jackson's Senate confirmation vote, she wrote a note to her goddaughter about the historic moment and the "deep sense of pride and joy" she felt. Biden also said that Jackson's confirmation will go down as a "moment of real change in American history," one which will "let so much sun shine on so many young women, so many young Black women."