It has taken 232 Long years and 115 prior appointments for a Black woman Ketanji Brown Jackson to be selected to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States
On April 7, 2022, the American Senate voted 53-47 to appoint Ketanji Brown Jackson as the first black woman Judge of the Supreme Court of America.
The Supreme Court of America was established on September 24, 1789. It has taken 233 long years for the USA Supreme Court to have its first black woman Judge.
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson also delivered a stirring speech connecting her historic confirmation as the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court to many Black Americans’ origin in the United States with a simple phrase: “We’ve made it.”
Even today, black Americans have to fight the movement of ‘Black Lives Matter’. A policeman there can kill a black in full public view by pressing his knee on the victim’s neck until he suffocates and dies. The blacks are killed praying in a church
I am reminded of the March 1857 judgment of the Supreme Court of America in the Dred Scott case. The 7-2 judgment was disastrous in its scope and consequence. The Court ruled that blacks “are not included and were not intended to be included under the word ‘citizen’ in the Constitution.” The US SC further held that neither the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution had been intended to apply to blacks. The blacks were so far inferior that they had no rights which the white men were bound to respect. The slaves were private property and the slavery was protected by the Constitution.
It took a civil war and the 13th and 14th amendments to the American Constitution in 1865 to annul the obnoxious judgment.
While reading the debates in the Presidential elections which elected Lincoln as the American President, I found the following passage in the speech of his rival Douglas portraying Lincoln as a black-loving agitator, “if you desire Negro citizenship, if you desire them to vote on an equality with yourselves, and to make them eligible to office, to serve on juries, and to adjudge your rights, then support Lincoln and the Black Republican Party.” The crowd responded “Never never”.
In response, Lincoln clarified that he had “no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races.” He was not in favour “of making voters or jurors of Negros…”
Even today, black Americans have to fight the movement of ‘Black Lives Matter’. A policeman there can kill a black in full public view by pressing his knee on the victim’s neck until he suffocates and dies. The blacks are killed praying in a church.
Truly, the fight for equality and dignity is a global matter and not limited to any particular pocket or amongst the castes.
