Ketanji Brown Jackson says ‘discomfort’ must not prevent teaching Black history

Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson warned Friday that the nation can’t waver from teaching Black history as she marked the 60th anniversary of an Alabama church bombing that killed four Black girls.

“If we’re going to continue to move forward as a nation, we cannot allow concerns about discomfort to displace knowledge, truth or history,” Jackson said during a visit to the church.

“It is certainly the case that parts of this country’s story can be hard to think about,” she continued. “I know that atrocities like the one we are memorializing today are difficult to remember and relive. But I also know that it is dangerous to forget them.”

The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Ala., committed by Ku Klux Klan members in 1963 killed four Black girls and injured more than a dozen others. The tragedy helped spur support for federal civil rights legislation.

Jackson, the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court, acknowledged the trip was her first visit to the state. But she stressed that “I know Alabama” because her parents had made sure to teach her about the Civil Rights Movement growing up.

“My parents also taught me about the darker moments of the time — the dogs, the fire hoses, the bombs,” Jackson said. “There was a reason my parents felt it was important to introduce me to those uncomfortable topics, and it was not to make me feel like a victim or crush my spirits. To the contrary, my parents understood that I had to know those hard truths in order to expand my horizons.”

“They understood that we can only know where we are and where we’re going if we realize where we’ve been,” she added.

Jackson’s comments come after some states, like Florida, passed legislation that limits what aspects of Black history can be taught in schools.

Though she did not mention those efforts directly, Jackson said she came to Alabama Friday to “commemorate and mourn, celebrate and warn.”

“Knowledge emboldens people, and it frees them,” she said. “The work of our time is maintaining that hard-won freedom. And to do that, we’re going to need the truth, the whole truth about our past. We must, we must teach it to our children and preserve it for theirs. In other words, my parents were right all along.”

Jackson’s speech was her first known public appearance since the Supreme Court left for its summer recess.

The term concluded with several contentious decisions, including a 6-3 vote to end affirmative action programs in higher education.

In a biting dissent, Jackson chastised her conservative colleagues for “deeming race irrelevant in law” as she discussed at length the race-based gaps that still persist.

“If the colleges of this country are required to ignore a thing that matters, it will not just go away. It will take longer for racism to leave us. And, ultimately, ignoring race just makes it matter more,” Jackson wrote in her dissent.

Jackson is soon set to confront another case implicating race as Alabama’s redistricting fight returns to the Supreme Court. The Republican-led state has a pending emergency appeal with the high court asking to block a ruling that found their latest congressional map dilutes the power of Black voters.

Other speakers at Friday’s commemoration included U.S. Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, who oversees the Justice Department’s civil rights division; White House senior adviser Stephen Benjamin; former Sen. Doug Jones (D-Ala.); and Rep. Terri Sewell (D), Alabama’s lone Black congresswoman.

“The horrific tragedy that occurred within these walls focused the eyes of the world on Birmingham, bringing into sharp clarity the injustices of our paths,” Sewell said.

“But for those of us in Birmingham, the bombing served as a reminder that every gain, every win, every advancement in the fight for civil rights has come at a high cost paid for by the sacrifices of others.”