Win With Black Women

A profile on Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson

In this week’s episode of the Suburban Women Problem podcast, Jasmine interviews Jotaka Eaddy, Founder of #WinWithBlackWomen. Win With Black Women has three main goals:

1. Eliminate the racist and sexist attacks on Black women.

2. Work within our personal capacities to support the historic number of Black women running for elected office at the federal, state, and local levels.

3. Elevate the agenda, image, and collective power of Black Women.

One of their biggest wins was joining forces with other Black women-led organizations to urge President Biden to keep his promise and nominate a Black woman to the U.S. Supreme Court. Once Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was nominated in 2022, Win With Black Women immediately began organizing, mobilizing, and calling for a swift and fair confirmation process. They knew she was beyond qualified to become an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. And on June 30, 2022, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson took her seat, becoming the first Black woman to sit on the Court.

(Photo credit: Sarahbeth Maney)

This was a milestone for Black women in the United States and nothing captured that moment better than the photo Sarahbeth Maney took of Justice Jackson’s daughter looking on with pride.

(Photo credit: Sarahbeth Maney)

This is what Sarahbeth had to say about that photo. “I hope this positive ripple effect keeps going and continues to take new forms because this isn't about me. It’s about all of us. This is about how we choose to document history for future generations to see. Thank you all for helping me amplify that message.”

Not only does Justice Jackson understand what this confirmation means to future generations, she also understands that she stands on the shoulders of those who have come before her. She invoked the memory of Constance Baker Motley, the first Black woman to serve as a federal judge in the United States, in her remarks to the Judiciary Committee at the Supreme Court confirmation hearings in the Senate.

Motley was the first African American woman to argue a case before the Supreme Court, and the first to serve as a federal judge. In the federal Judiciary, she is revered by the many judges and clerks she mentored and she has inspired generations of African American women lawyers who became judges themselves.

In her autobiography, Motley said she never was discouraged by doubts concerning her background. “I was the kind of person who would not be put down,” Motley wrote. “I rejected any notion that my race or sex would bar my success in life.”

Motley is known as one of the nation’s most celebrated civil rights lawyers for her work to end segregation in schools and universities. She helped change Justice Jackson’s life prospects by creating educational and employment opportunities previously denied to descendants of the enslaved. 

As Tomiko Brown-Nagin, author of Civil Rights Queen: Constance Baker Motley and the Struggle for Equality, wrote in Oprah Daily, “Without Constance Baker Motley’s path breaking contributions to American law and society, there would be no Ketanji Brown Jackson as we know her.”

This is why the Win With Black Women movement is so important. They are making a difference throughout the nation with a collective of intergenerational and intersectional Black women leaders. 

Listen to this week’s pod episode to hear more from Jotaka about her work with Win With Black Women.