Ketanji Brown Jackson, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, recently shared the story of her relationship with her husband, Patrick Graves Jackson.
Jackson, the first Black woman to serve as a Supreme Court justice, spoke about how she met her husband during an interview with Gayle King on CBS Mornings. She was on the show to discuss her new book, Lovely One.
She met Patrick while they were both students at Harvard, at a time when she was still finding her way. The two were classmates and worked together to advocate for the removal of a Confederate flag from the campus.
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Initially, Jackson was uncertain about the future of their interracial relationship after they first met.
“I love the backstory of your meeting. I already see the movie,” King remarked.
Jackson recalled that they had been in a class together called “Changing the Concept of Race in America.” They started out as friends, but soon her feelings for Patrick grew into something more.
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Despite her affection for him, the 53-year-old Justice worried about how her family might react. Her concerns stemmed from the fact that Patrick had grown up in a White, privileged family. His grandmother, who was financing his medical school education, became a particular concern for Jackson, who feared she might stop supporting him if she discovered he had a Black girlfriend.
“I was just nervous about the whole scenario. My parents had grown up in the South, during segregation, and this was an interracial relationship, which was still unusual,” she said.
Patrick reassured her that their relationship would succeed.
“At one point, he said, ‘I choose you,’ because I was worried that his grandmother might stop paying for his medical school if she found out about me,” Jackson recalled. “And he said, ‘Even if I have to take a job or do something else, I choose you.'”
Jackson called that moment “pretty extraordinary.”
She also shared that, over time, her parents came around to support their relationship. As King noted, her father had said, “We trust Patrick, but this is America.”
Despite her initial fears, Jackson’s parents eventually became convinced that Patrick was the right match for their daughter.
The couple married in 1996 and now have two daughters.
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“Patrick believed, from the very beginning, that this was going to happen for you,” King said. “Talk about someone who believed in you from the start.”
During the interview, Patrick, who was in the studio, became emotional and wiped away tears as he watched his wife recount their story.
Jackson also reflected on a pivotal moment from her time at Harvard, when a simple word from a stranger helped her during a difficult time.
“I was feeling really depressed, as many freshmen do, experiencing imposter syndrome,” she said, explaining that she doubted whether she belonged at Harvard.
“A woman passed me on the path, leaned over, and said, ‘Persevere.’ And then she kept going,” Jackson recalled. “That one word stuck with me, and it started to change how I saw my place there.”
Ketanji Brown Jackson graduated from Harvard-Radcliffe in 1992 with a Bachelor’s degree in government. She went on to earn her law degree from Harvard Law School in 1996. After working in private practice and completing three federal clerkships, she served on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia from 2013 to 2021, before being appointed to the Supreme Court by President Biden.
