COLUMBUS, Ohio — It’s never easy being the first like Ketanji Brown Jackson, and Yvette McGee Brown knows the intense scrutinization that comes with it all too well.
“When you are in these positions, particularly when you are the first it always seems like you have to validate yourself every time,” said Brown. “You have to show that you belong in the room.”
But there's a lot of inspiration that comes from being the first.
“To see the manifestation of black women, it really does something for our children and will mean something for our children’s children,” said Ayesha Bell Hardaway, Associate Professor of law at Case Western Reserve University.
That manifestation is seeing the nation’s first black woman to serve as Vice President Kamala Harris preside over the senate as it confirmed the first black woman to serve on the supreme court.
The manifestation is also seeing four women on the high court at once, but Hardaway adds that it took 233 years to get here and this isn’t the finish line.
“The reality is that there is a lot of work to do in this country and even one black woman on the highest court in the land is not going to be able to change that alone,” said Hardaway.
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