Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, will speak at N.C. A&T on Wednesday, Sept. 3, according to the university’s newsroom.

Jackson is scheduled to speak at 6 p.m. to a sold-out crowd of students, faculty, and staff in Harrison Auditorium. The university is one of many nationwide tour stops to promote her New York Times bestseller memoir, “The Lovely One.” Jackson is expected to provoke a passionate conversation about Black excellence within politics and her earlier years.

“The Lovely One,” which is the meaning of Jackson’s name—Ketanji Onyika—takes a detailed look at her life story dating back to her childhood and public school days in Miami, where she graduated from Miami Palmetto Senior High School. She attended Harvard for both her bachelor’s degree in government and her law degree from Harvard Law School, which she earned cum laude.

Before being nominated for the Supreme Court by then-President Joe Biden, Jackson had an extensive career in journalism and law. She was a reporter and researcher for Time magazine, writing stories on economic policy for prescription drug prices. Additionally, throughout the ’90s she clerked for Judge Bruce M. Selya of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer. She also opened her own private practice in Washington, D.C. 

Jackson’s career would reach new heights in the mid-2000s when she began serving as a federal public defender in D.C., representing detainees and indigent clients held by the U.S. in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Her efforts were rewarded when then-President Barack Obama nominated her to the U.S. Sentencing Commission in 2009 and then as a U.S. district judge for the District of Columbia in 2013.

She is married to Patrick Graves Jackson, a surgeon whom she met while they were classmates at Harvard. The couple has two daughters.

Briana Hyman, a teaching assistant professor of political science at A&T, said she is eager to hear Jackson speak after learning about their similarities in education and upbringings from reading the memoir.

“Justice Jackson’s educational and professional journey are both factors that personally connect with me. I am also the product of public schools until my Ph.D., and I, like Justice Jackson, am in my ‘dream career’ in teaching higher education,” she explained.

“I love being in the classroom and engaging with students,” Hyman said. “While Justice Jackson’s position on the nation’s highest court is arguably more stressful and influential than mine, I believe we both are living our dreams and making a difference in the world in our own ways.”

Third-year political science student and SGA Senator Diana Bedden was able to obtain one of the coveted tickets to the event. Harrison Auditorium can only seat 900 people, and as of Friday it remained unclear if student media would be able to attend the event.

“At a time when questions of equity, representation, and justice are pressing in our country, her voice is both timely and inspiring,” Bedden said. “I think she will talk about resilience, civic responsibility, and the importance of creating pathways for those who will come after us.”

Bedden, an active voice in civic engagement on campus, plans to attend law school after graduation and pursue a career in public service. She admires Jackson’s story, saying the Supreme Court justice proves that your “background doesn’t define your ceiling.”