<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div dir="ltr"><base href="https://www.al.com/news/2023/09/i-felt-in-my-spirit-i-had-to-come-justice-ketanji-brown-jackson-speaks-at-16th-street-baptist-church.html?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Sybil%20Daily%2023_0919&utm_term=Its%20Sybil%20Daily%20Subscribers"><style id="print"></style><title>‘I felt in my spirit I had to come,’ Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson says at 16th Street Baptist Church - al.com</title><div class="original-url"><br><a href="https://www.al.com/news/2023/09/i-felt-in-my-spirit-i-had-to-come-justice-ketanji-brown-jackson-speaks-at-16th-street-baptist-church.html?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Sybil%20Daily%2023_0919&utm_term=Its%20Sybil%20Daily%20Subscribers">https://www.al.com/news/2023/09/i-felt-in-my-spirit-i-had-to-come-justice-ketanji-brown-jackson-speaks-at-16th-street-baptist-church.html?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Sybil%20Daily%2023_0919&utm_term=Its%20Sybil%20Daily%20Subscribers</a><br><br></div><div id="article" role="article" style="-webkit-locale: "en"; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; font-family: -apple-system-font; font-size: 1.2em; line-height: 1.5em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" class="system exported">
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<div class="page" style="text-align: start; overflow-wrap: break-word; max-width: 100%;"><h1 class="title" style="font-weight: bold; font-size: 1.95552em; line-height: 1.2141em; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; text-align: start; display: block; max-width: 100%;">‘I felt in my spirit I had to come,’ Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson says at 16th Street</h1><div class="metadata singleline" style="text-align: start; display: block; margin-bottom: 1.45em; margin-top: -0.75em; max-width: 100%;"><div class="byline" style="margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; font-size: 1em !important; font-weight: normal !important; font-style: normal !important; display: inline !important;"><span style="margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; font-size: 1em !important; font-weight: normal !important; font-style: normal !important; display: inline !important;">By </span><ul class="list-style-type-none" style="margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; list-style-type: none; padding-inline-start: 0px; font-size: 1em !important; font-weight: normal !important; font-style: normal !important; display: inline !important;"><li style="margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; list-style-type: none; padding-inline-start: 0px; font-size: 1em !important; font-weight: normal !important; font-style: normal !important; display: inline !important;"><a href="https://www.al.com/staff/greggarrison/posts.html" title="Greg Garrison at ggarrison@al.com" style="margin: 0px; color: rgb(65, 110, 210); max-width: 100%; text-decoration: underline; font-size: 1em !important; font-weight: normal !important; font-style: normal !important; display: inline !important;">Greg Garrison | ggarrison@al.com</a></li></ul></div></div><figure style="max-width: 100%; font-size: 0.75em; line-height: 1.5em; font-family: -apple-system-font; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.65); margin: 0px;"><div style="max-width: 100%;"><img srcset="https://www.al.com/resizer/HBS1H3PG6P6dwxbr8baXifn5fBE=/500x0/smart/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/advancelocal/FTBIEW5NMZBTRJ4W5C5CAITC5I.jpg 500w, https://www.al.com/resizer/derYvt9RB9UNncV6fjb56CVjRKo=/800x0/smart/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/advancelocal/FTBIEW5NMZBTRJ4W5C5CAITC5I.jpg 800w, https://www.al.com/resizer/EJRGedSNPaiK-E9xo4Khesixi_0=/1280x0/smart/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/advancelocal/FTBIEW5NMZBTRJ4W5C5CAITC5I.jpg 1280w" sizes="50vw" src="https://www.al.com/resizer/EJRGedSNPaiK-E9xo4Khesixi_0=/1280x0/smart/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/advancelocal/FTBIEW5NMZBTRJ4W5C5CAITC5I.jpg" alt="Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson speaks at 16th Street Baptist Church" height="600" width="300" style="max-width: 100%; margin: 0.5em auto; display: block; height: auto;" data-unique-identifier=""><figcaption style="max-width: 100%; margin-top: 0.8em; width: 100%; font-size: 0.75rem; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8);"><p style="max-width: 100%; margin-top: 0.4em; margin-bottom: 0.4em;">Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman on the nation's highest court, speaks at the 60th Commemoration of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing Friday, Sept. 15, 2023, in Birmingham, Ala. (AP Photo/Butch Dill)<span style="max-width: 100%;">AP</span></p></figcaption></div></figure><p style="max-width: 100%;">U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman on the nation’s highest court, spoke Friday at the 60th anniversary memorial service at the site of a 1963 bombing that killed four girls and became a turning point for the civil rights movement.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">Born on Sept. 14, 1970, Jackson, 53, noted that she came of age after the civil right movement had moved obstacles to allow her to pursue a career in law and ultimately take a seat last year as an associate justice on the nation’s highest court.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">This week marked her first trip to the state. “I felt in my spirit that I had to come,” she said.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">She spoke at 16th Street Baptist Church on Friday morning after the tolling of bells at 10:22 a.m., to remember the moment a bomb blast on Sept. 15, 1963, killed Addie Mae Collins, 14, Denise McNair, 11, Carole Rosamond Robertson, 14, and Cynthia Wesley, 14.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">She knew the story as a child, she said.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">“I knew that four little girls, not much older than myself, had been murdered at 16th Street Baptist Church when a bomb ripped through the basement, awakening the nation and the world to the horrors of race-based violence and oppression,” Jackson said. “I knew those girls were killed simply because they were Black, and because at that time, people were rising up to demand equal rights.”</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">Their deaths helped change society so that she could take her place in it. It came at the cost of lives they could have lived.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">“I come to Alabama with a heart filled with gratitude, for unlike those four little girls, I have lived, and have been entrusted with the solemn responsibility of serving our great nation, a service that I hope will inspire people, and especially young people, to think about what is possible, to understand the law, and to recommit themselves to the constitution and its core values, the rule of law, democracy, freedom, justice and equality,” she said.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">“I’ve come to Alabama to commemorate and mourn, celebrate and warn,” Jackson said.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">Jackson said she has two daughters who she will always consider her little girls. “I can imagine no greater horror than to lose a child this way,” she said.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">She said her mother, aunt and uncle are all proud graduates of Tuskegee University.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">“I want to assure you that I actually do know a lot about Alabama and in particular its critical connection to the civil rights struggle of African-Americans during the 1950s and 1960s,” she said. “While I’ve not been to Alabama, I can quite confidently say that I know Alabama. If you knew my parents, you would understand why.”</p><p style="max-width: 100%;"></p><div class="iframe-wrapper" style="height: 219.375px; max-width: 100%;"><MailScannerIFrame16868 iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7gEJkIyveaw?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" title="60-year commemoration of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin" style="height: 100%; width: 390px; max-width: 100%;"></MailScannerIFrame16868></div><p></p><p style="max-width: 100%;">She was raised in Florida by parents who were schoolteachers who taught her civil rights history. “Alabama is ground zero for this kind of instruction,” she said.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">“Why has it taken 232 years and 115 prior appointments for a Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court?” Jackson asked during her speech. “I come to Alabama to wrestle with those questions, in a community that knows first-hand how difficult the journey has been, a place where people remember what it cost to make it this far. I come with the understanding that I did not reach these professional heights on my own, that people of all races and faiths, people of courage and conviction, cleared the path for me in the wake of horrible tragedy.”</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">Jackson said knowledge and truth are the keys to continuing progress in social justice.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">“If we are going to continue to move forward as a nation, we cannot allow concerns about discomfort to displace knowledge, truth or history,” Jackson said. “It is certainly the case that parts of this country’s story can be hard to think about.”</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">Those stories must still be told, she said.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">“We have to own even the darkest parts of our past, understand them and vow never to repeat them,” Jackson said.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">16th Street Baptist was filled to capacity, more than 1,000 people, for the memorial service. Filmmaker Spike Lee, who directed the 1997 documentary, “4 Little Girls,” was seated on the front row with family members of bombing victims, U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell and Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin. Lee took part in the laying of a wreath at the site of the bombing on the exterior of the church after the service, when Jackson had departed. <a href="https://www.al.com/life/2023/09/spike-lee-coaches-12-year-old-girl-member-of-16th-street-baptist-on-where-to-go-to-college.html" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(65, 110, 210); max-width: 100%; text-decoration: underline;">He also offered college advice to Isabella Jolly, 12</a>, a member of 16th Street Baptist Church.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">Former U.S. Sen. Doug Jones, who as a U.S. attorney prosecuted the bombers and also led President Joe Biden’s search for what he promised would be the first Black woman on the Supreme Court, introduced Jackson and has served as her tour guide in Birmingham, she said.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">Her visit to Alabama included<a href="https://www.al.com/life/2023/09/supreme-court-justice-ketanji-brown-jackson-eats-at-popular-birmingham-soul-food-spot.html" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(65, 110, 210); max-width: 100%; text-decoration: underline;"> lunch on Thursday at Yo’ Mama’s</a>, a popular soul food restaurant downtown.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">Because the church was standing-room only, hundreds of people who had waited outside a security checkpoint in front of the church before the service started at 9:30 a.m. had to listen to Jackson’s speech broadcast to the overflow crowd that moved to Kelly Ingram Park for the broadcast near a statue that pays homage to the four little girls.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;">The<a href="https://youtu.be/7gEJkIyveaw" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(65, 110, 210); max-width: 100%; text-decoration: underline;"> full memorial service may be viewed here</a>.</p><p style="max-width: 100%;"><b style="max-width: 100%;">See also: </b><a href="https://www.al.com/life/2023/09/spike-lee-coaches-12-year-old-girl-member-of-16th-street-baptist-on-where-to-go-to-college.html" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(65, 110, 210); max-width: 100%; text-decoration: underline;"><b style="max-width: 100%;">Spike Lee coaches 12-year-old girl, member of 16th Street Baptist, on where to go to college</b></a></p><figure style="max-width: 100%; font-size: 0.75em; line-height: 1.5em; font-family: -apple-system-font; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.65); margin: 0px;"><div style="max-width: 100%;"><img srcset="https://www.al.com/resizer/QdDOsA-YJ61gm_6cIO7wUhpBqRc=/500x0/smart/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/advancelocal/XUQGSQWLKJBYFN7KXMQHYCPZYY.jpg 500w, https://www.al.com/resizer/F8HnnvsoB2nrvnonnyvRodZ9EYE=/800x0/smart/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/advancelocal/XUQGSQWLKJBYFN7KXMQHYCPZYY.jpg 800w, https://www.al.com/resizer/stmbPprXLsTVAGHV4PLP4mWBB58=/1280x0/smart/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/advancelocal/XUQGSQWLKJBYFN7KXMQHYCPZYY.jpg 1280w" sizes="50vw" src="https://www.al.com/resizer/stmbPprXLsTVAGHV4PLP4mWBB58=/1280x0/smart/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/advancelocal/XUQGSQWLKJBYFN7KXMQHYCPZYY.jpg" loading="lazy" alt="Crowds gather for 16th Street bombing memorial" height="600" width="300" style="max-width: 100%; margin: 0.5em auto; display: block; height: auto;" data-unique-identifier=""><figcaption style="max-width: 100%; margin-top: 0.8em; width: 100%; font-size: 0.75rem; color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8);"><p style="max-width: 100%; margin-top: 0.4em; margin-bottom: 0.4em;">Thousands gathered and waited to pass through security checkpoints at the front of 16th Street Baptist Church on Sept. 15, 2023, for the memorial service commemorating the bombing that killed four girls on Sept. 15, 1963. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson spoke (Photo by Greg Garrison/AL.com)</p></figcaption></div></figure></div></div></div><br><br><div dir="ltr">Reverent Dr. Carolyn Peters, National Federation Of The Blind, Ohio, affiliate, vice president, 937-657-5134,<div>Dr.Carolyn.peters@gmail.com </div><div></div><div></div></div></body></html>