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Ketanji Brown Jackson Confirmed by Senate as U.S. Supreme Court Justice

Ketanji Brown Jackson Confirmed by Senate as U.S. Supreme Court Justice

By goodblacknews on April 7, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

History was made moments ago when the U.S. Senate confirmed Ketanji Brown Jackson 53-47 to become the next Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Jackson is the first African American woman to serve on the court and the 116th Associate Justice overall.

President Joe Biden nominated Jackson over a month ago to take over the seat of retiring Justice Stephen Breyer, for whom Jackson once clerked.

Associate Justice Jackson was born in Washington, DC and grew up in Miami, Florida. Her parents attended segregated primary schools, then attended historically black colleges and universities.

Both started their careers as public school teachers and became leaders and administrators in the Miami-Dade Public School System. When Justice Jackson was in preschool, her father attended law school.

In a 2017 lecture, Justice Jackson traced her love of the law back to sitting next to her father in their apartment as he tackled his law school homework—reading cases and preparing for Socratic questioning—while she undertook her preschool homework—coloring books.

Justice Jackson stood out as a high achiever throughout her childhood. She was a speech and debate star who was elected “mayor” of Palmetto Junior High and student body president of Miami Palmetto Senior High School.

But like many Black women, Judge Jackson still faced naysayers. When Judge Jackson told her high school guidance counselor she wanted to attend Harvard, the guidance counselor warned that Justice Jackson should not set her “sights so high.”

That did not stop Judge Jackson. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University, then attended Harvard Law School, where she graduated cum laude and was an editor of the Harvard Law Review.

Jackson went on to clerk for the U.S. Supreme Court, serve as a public defender, become a U.S. District Court Judge for the District of Columbia and then a Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals.

Justice Jackson lives with her husband, Patrick, and their two daughters, in Washington, DC.

Quote from Mary McLeod Bethune – Educator, Community Builder, Civil Rights Leader (LISTEN)

Quote from Mary McLeod Bethune – Educator, Community Builder, Civil Rights Leader (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on March 28, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Today we share a quote from and some facts about the mighty Mary McLeod Bethune, educator, activist and founder of Bethune-Cookman University and the National Council of Negro Women.

This GBN Daily Drop is based on the Monday, March 28 entry in “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022:

You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website (transcript below):

SHOW TRANSCRIPT:

Hey, this Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Monday, March 28th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.

Today we offer a quote from esteemed educator and civil rights activist Mary McLeod Bethune:

“Without faith, nothing is possible. With it, nothing is impossible.”

Born during Reconstruction in Maysville, South Carolina in 1875, Bethune was the 15th out of 17thchild of formerly enslaved parents Samuel and Patsy McIntosh McLeod, and the first of theirs born into freedom.

At an early age, Bethune pursued education any way she could, even if it meant walking eight miles each way to the only school around. After attending college in North Carolina and Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, Bethune became a teacher herself.

She eventually started a school of her own in Daytona, Florida with husband and fellow teacher Albertus Bethune, that evolved into what is now Bethune-Cookman University.

In her lifetime, Bethune went on to become a national advisor to President Franklin D. Roosevelt as part of his “Black” cabinet, represented the NAACP at the founding of the United Nations in 1945, raised money to open the first hospital for Black people in Daytona, Florida, founded the National Council of Negro Women and co-founded the United Negro College Fund.

To learn more about Bethune and her legacy, read Mary McLeod Bethune: Building a Better World, Essays and Selected Documents edited by Audrey Thomas McCluskey and Elaine M. Smith, Mary McLeod Bethune in Florida: Bringing Social Justice to the Sunshine State by Dr. Ashley N. Robinson, and Mary McLeod Bethune: Her Life and Legacy by Nancy Ann Zrinyi Long.

Also check out the 2016 documentary Mary McLeod Bethune – African Americans Who Left Their Stamp on History, the Mary McLeod Bethune documentary posted by Gig Bag Media on YouTube, and cookman.libguides.com to access newsreels, videos and audio recordings of Bethune herself.

In fact, here’s a taste of her voice from a 1949 radio broadcast with Eleanor Roosevelt speaking on the importance of democracy, coalition and human rights:

[Excerpt from 1949 broadcast with Eleanor Roosevelt]

This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing.

Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.

If you like these Daily Drops, please consider following us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com,Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.

For more Good Black News, you can check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.

Sources:

(paid links)

Flowers to Civil Rights and Voting Rights Activist Fannie Lou Hamer For #WomensHistoryMonth (LISTEN)

Flowers to Civil Rights and Voting Rights Activist Fannie Lou Hamer For #WomensHistoryMonth (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on March 24, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

We celebrate grassroots organizer, civil rights and voting rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer in today’s Daily Drop podcast. Our salute to Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party founder Hamer is based on the Thursday, March 24 entry in “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022:

You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website (transcript below):

SHOW TRANSCRIPT:

Hey, this Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Thursday, March 24th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.

“Sick and tired of being sick and tired,” in the 1960s, Mississippi plantation worker Fannie Lou Hamer was fired, threatened by white supremacists, and beaten in police custody when she tried to vote and register others to do the same.

But Hamer would not be silenced. She formed the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and demanded to represent her state at the 1964 Democratic Convention. Hamer fought for voting rights, education rights, and economic rights and even ran for Senate.

Although she wasn’t rich, traditionally educated or well-connected,  Hamer was a grassroots leader who got involved – and stayed involved — because she believed to her core “Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.”

Hamer passed in 1977 after years of dealing with serious health issues, but her legacy as an outspoken and effective activist, organizer and champion for equal rights will never be forgotten.

Last February, rapper and activist Common announced he’s producing a biographical movie on Hamer based on her 1967 autobiography To Praise Our Bridges and the book God’s Long Summer by Charles Marsh, which chronicles the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.

Just last month, the documentary Fannie Lou Hamer’s America debuted on PBS and can now be seen in full via WORLD Channel on YouTube.

https://youtu.be/5h2MzXavgEg

To learn more about Fannie Lou Hamer, you can read her autobiography on snccdigital.org, that’s SNCC digital dot org, read 2013’s The Speeches of Fannie Lou Hamer: To Tell It Like it Is, or check out 2021’s Until I Am Free: Fannie Lou Hamer’s Enduring Message to America by Keisha N. Blain and Walk With Me: A Biography of Fannie Lou Hamer by Kate Clifford Larson.

You can also watch clips of Hamer’s speeches on YouTube, and check out links to these and other sources provided in today’s show notes and the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.

This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing.

Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.

If you like these Daily Drops, please consider following us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.

For more Good Black News, you can check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.

Sources:

(paid links)

U.S. House of Representatives Passes “The Crown Act” Banning Discrimination Based on Hair Texture or Styles

U.S. House of Representatives Passes “The Crown Act” Banning Discrimination Based on Hair Texture or Styles

By goodblacknews on March 20, 2022

According to nbcnews.com, the United States House of Representatives passed the CROWN Act, which would ban hair-related discrimination on Friday.

Measure H.R. 2116 passed 235-189 in a vote along party lines. It was introduced by Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, D-N.J.

“CROWN” stands for Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair, and the act prohibits “discrimination based on an individual’s texture or style of hair.” The bill now heads to the U.S. Senate for consideration, debate and a vote.

To quote nbcnews.com:

The legislation states that “routinely, people of African descent are deprived of educational and employment opportunities” for wearing their hair in natural or protective hairstyles such as locs, cornrows, twists, braids, Bantu knots, or Afros.

“Here we are today, standing on behalf of those individuals — whether my colleagues on the other side recognize it or not — who are discriminated against as children in school, as adults who are trying to get jobs, individuals who are trying to get housing, individuals who simply want access to public accommodations and to be beneficiaries of federally funded programs,” Watson Coleman said in remarks on the House floor Friday morning.

This demonstrates the bill’s necessity, she said, because there are people in positions of authority “who think because your hair is kinky, it is braided, it is in knots or it is not straight and blonde and light brown, that you somehow are not worthy of access to those issues.”

“Well,” she added, “that’s discrimination.”

“There’s no logical reason that anyone should be discriminated against on any level because of the texture of their hair or the style of their hair,” Watson Coleman said.

Without naming him, she referred to Andrew Johnson, a Black varsity high school wrestler in New Jersey with dreadlocks who was forced in 2018 to make a choice: cut his hair or forfeit his match.

“This bill is vitally important,” she said. “It’s important to the young girls and the young boys who have to cut their hair in the middle of a wrestling match in front of everyone because some white referee says that your hair is inappropriate to engage in your match.”

The Biden administration this week said it “strongly supports” the Crown Act. More than a dozen states, including Connecticut, New Jersey and New York, have passed versions of the Crown Act. California was the first state to do so.

Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/house-passes-crown-act-banning-discrimination-black-hairstyles-rcna20617

GBN’s Daily Drop: Dred Scott, Harriet Scott and the Worst Supreme Court Decision in U.S. History (LISTEN)

GBN’s Daily Drop: Dred Scott, Harriet Scott and the Worst Supreme Court Decision in U.S. History (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on March 6, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Today’s GBN Daily Drop podcast is a bonus episode for Sunday, March 6 and based on the “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022 format.

It’s about an enslaved couple, Dred Scott and Harriet Robinson Scott, who sued for their freedom in federal court, which lead to the U.S. Supreme Court’s infamous and atrocious 1857 Dred Scott decision:

You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website (transcript below):

SHOW TRANSCRIPT:

Hey, this Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of GoodBlackNews.org, here to share with you a bonus daily drop of Good Black News for Sunday, March 6th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.

So, I had a few different ideas for this bonus episode, like doing a drop about innovative jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery, the “supreme” Mary Wilson, NBA champion Shaquille O’Neal or “King of Comedy” D.L. Hughley, who all claim March 6th as their birthday. And shout outs to them.

They may all get drops in the future, but when I learned March 6 is also the day that the infamous U.S. Supreme Court Dred Scott decision was made 165 years ago and considered to be one of the worst Supreme Court rulings in history, I wanted to drop in on that.

On March 6, 1857, Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney oversaw a 7-2 vote against the enslaved spouses Dred Scott and Harriet Scott, who were petitioning for their freedom based on the fact that they had worked and lived in free states with or for their owners.

But as agreed to in the Missouri Compromise, this gave the Scotts the right to be free. However, in the majority opinion, Chief Justice Taney stated that all people of African descent, free or enslaved, weren’t U.S. citizens and therefore did not have the right to sue in federal court, on top of arguing that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional, as well as the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

GBN’s Daily Drop: Learn About Sojourner Truth – Orator, Abolitionist and Women’s Rights Advocate (LISTEN)

GBN’s Daily Drop: Learn About Sojourner Truth – Orator, Abolitionist and Women’s Rights Advocate (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on March 2, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Today’s GBN Daily Drop podcast is based on the Wednesday,  March 2  entry in the “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022 about Sojourner Truth, the formerly enslaved protestor and advocate for women’s rights, prison reform and the abolition of slavery:

You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website (transcript below):

SHOW TRANSCRIPT:

Hey, this Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Wednesday, March 2nd, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.

In 1827, while slavery was still legal in New York, Isabella Baumfree escaped to freedom with her baby daughter. She went to court to recover her son and two years later she became the first Black woman to win such a case against a white man.

In 1843 Baumfree renamed herself Sojourner Truth and began advocating for the abolition of slavery, women’s voting rights, prison reform and the end of capital punishment across the entire United States.

The first Black woman in America to attain national fame for protesting, Truth was honored in 2009 with a bust in the U.S. Capitol Building, and in 2020 as part of the Women’s Rights Pioneers Monument unveiled in New York’s Central Park.

Truth was also very recently honored when New York governor Kathy Hochul announced a new state park in Ulster that will be named the Sojourner Truth State Park, and it will open later this year.To learn more about Sojourner Truth, read her autobiography The Narrative of Sojourner Truth, the biography Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol by Nell Irvin Painter, and for children, there’s My Name is Truth: The Life of Sojourner Truth written by Ann Turner and illustrated by James Ransome.

Also, do yourself a favor and check out the Sojourner Truth Project online where they compare the original transcription by Marcus Robinson of Truth’s speech in 1851 with the version that became popularized 12 years later. Other sources are also provided in today’s show notes and in the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.

1851 Sojourner Truth Speech – excerpt read by ST:

“May I say a few words? I want to say a few words about this matter. I am a woman’s rights. I have as much muscle as any man, and can do as much work as any man.  I have plowed and reaped and husked and chopped and mowed, and can any man do more than that? I have heard much about the sexes being equal; I can carry as much as any man, and can eat as much too, if I can get it. I am as strong as any man that is now.

As for intellect, all I can say is, if women have a pint and man a quart – why can’t she have her little pint full? You need not be afraid to give us our rights for fear we will take too much, for we can’t take more than our pint’ll hold. The poor men seem to be all in confusion…”

This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com, Amazon,Bookshop and other online retailers.

Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.

If you like these Daily Drops, please consider following us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com,Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. You could give us a positive rating or review, share your favorite episodes on social media, or go old school and tell a friend.

For more Good Black News, you can check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.

Sources:

GBN’s Daily Drop: Black Lexicon – What “Intersectionality” Means (LISTEN)

GBN’s Daily Drop: Black Lexicon – What “Intersectionality” Means (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on March 1, 2022

[Image Source: Intersectional Environmentalist via YouTube]

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Today’s GBN Daily Drop podcast is based on the Tuesday,  March 1 entry in the “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022 to kick off Women’s History Month.

It’s in our Black Lexicon category called “Lemme Break It Down” and explains the term “Intersectionality”:

You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website (transcript below):

SHOW TRANSCRIPT:

Hey, this Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Tuesday, March 1st, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.

It’s in the category we call “Lemme Break It Down,” where we explore the origins and meanings of words and phrases rooted in the Black Lexicon and Black culture. Today’s phrase to kick off Women’s History Month? “Intersectionality.”

“Intersectionality” is the term coined by Columbia University Law School Professor and Black feminist scholar Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw in 1989 to describe how race and gender create a unique form of oppression for African American women.

The term gave name to a key perspective which of course had been discussed long before. 18th and 19th century writings by Anna Julia Cooper, Ida B. Wells and Sojourner Truth’s famous “Ain’t I A Woman?” speech address the same concept.

Twenty-first-century usage has expanded to include class, sexuality, ability, religion or nationality as identities that can intersect to shape discrimination as well as privilege.

To learn more about intersectionality, check out the paper Kimberlé Crenshaw published in the University of Chicago Legal Forum where she first publicly explained her theory, entitled “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex”, listen to Crenshaw’s current podcast on the subject, Intersectionality Matters, and check out other sources provided in today’s show notes and in the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.

This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com, Amazon,Bookshop and other online retailers.

Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.

If you like our Daily Drops, please consider following us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon,Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. You could give us a positive rating or review, share your favorite episodes on social media, or go old school and tell a friend.

For more Good Black News, you can check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodb,lacknews anywhere on social.

Sources:

GBN’s Daily Drop: Black Ukrainians – Learn About Eurovision Finalist Gaitana and Politician & Olympic Gold Medalist Zhan Belenuik (LISTEN)

GBN’s Daily Drop: Black Ukrainians – Learn About Eurovision Finalist Gaitana and Politician & Olympic Gold Medalist Zhan Belenuik (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on February 26, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Today’s GBN Daily Drop podcast is a bonus episode for Saturday, February 26, 2022, based on the   “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022 format.

We highlight singer/songrwriter Gaitana and athlete-turned-politician Zhan Belenuik, two Black Ukrainians or Afro Ukrainians who represent a small but important part of the Ukrainian citizenry affected by the recent Russian invasion of that nation.

You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website (transcript below):

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Hey, this Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a bonus daily drop of Good Black News for Saturday, February 26th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” format, published by Workman Publishing.

As the invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces dominates global news, I’d like to dedicate this week’s bonus daily drop to the small but very real population of Afro-Ukrainians who are part of the citizenry that is struggling to survive as a nation.

Two Afro-Ukrainians with prominent international profiles are singer/ songwriter Gaitana, and politician and athlete Zhan Belenuik.

Gaitana made history when she represented Ukraine in the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest and performed the song “Be My Guest,” placing 15th in the final.

Gaitana has a lovely, soulful voice and you can learn more about her and her music, sung mostly in her native tongue, on her website, gaitana.com, and you can stream her songs on Apple Music and Spotify.

Zhan Belenuik also made history in Ukraine with his 2019 election to Parliament as a member of President Zelensky’s Servant of the People party. In addition to being a former member of the Ukrainian Army, Belenuik has also represented Ukraine as a Greco Roman wrestler.

Belenuik competed and won the silver medal in the 2016 Rio Olympics and brought home the gold from the Tokyo Olympics in 2020. Gaitana and Belenuik both have spoken about facing racism in their home country, but also embrace their and support their homeland.

I’d also like to shout out The Root reporter Terrell Jermaine Starr, who has reported about the history of Blacks in Ukraine, about Ukraine in general, hosts a podcast called Black Diplomats, and is currently in Ukraine reporting for CNN on the war as well as posting about it on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/terrelljstarr/status/1497435803135488006

To learn more about Belenuik, Gaitana and other Afro Ukrainians, check out the links to sources provided in today’s show notes and in the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.

This has been a bonus daily drop of Good Black News, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com,Amazon, Bookshop and other online retailers. Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.

For more Good Black News, you can check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodbinlacknews anywhere on social.

Sources:

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is Nominated by President Biden to Serve on the U.S. Supreme Court

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is Nominated by President Biden to Serve on the U.S. Supreme Court

By goodblacknews on February 25, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson has been selected by President Joe Biden to fill the U.S. Supreme Court vacancy created by Justice Stephen G. Breyer‘s impending retirement. When confirmed, Jackson will become the first Black woman to serve on the nation’s highest court of law.

Jackson, 51, a U.S. appeals court judge in Washington, has been the front runner for the Supreme Court seat ever since Justice Breyer, 83, announced last month he was retiring. Jackson was, fittingly, a Supreme Court law clerk for Breyer.

In addition to being the first Black female justice, Jackson would be the first justice on the Supreme Court to have previously worked as a public defender, something progressive groups, according to the Los Angeles Times, hope will help the court offer a different perspective.

Judge Jackson, who graduated with honors from Harvard Law School,  was born in Washington, DC and grew up in Miami, Florida. Her parents attended segregated primary schools, then attended historically black colleges and universities. Both started their careers as public school teachers and became leaders and administrators in the Miami-Dade Public School System.

When Judge Jackson was in preschool, her father attended law school. In a 2017 lecture, Judge Jackson traced her love of the law back to sitting next to her father in their apartment as he tackled his law school homework—reading cases and preparing for Socratic questioning—while she undertook her preschool homework—coloring books.

By Lloyd DeGrane via Wikimedia Commons

Judge Jackson stood out as a high achiever throughout her childhood. She was a speech and debate star who was elected “mayor” of Palmetto Junior High and student body president of Miami Palmetto Senior High School.

But like many Black women, Judge Jackson still faced naysayers. When Judge Jackson told her high school guidance counselor she wanted to attend Harvard, the guidance counselor warned that Judge Jackson should not set her “sights so high.”

That did not stop Judge Jackson. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University as an undergraduate, then attended Harvard Law School, where she graduated cum laude and was an editor of the Harvard Law Review.

Judge Jackson lives with her husband, Dr. Patrick Jackson, who is a surgeon, and their two daughters, in Washington, DC.

Read more: https://www.whitehouse.gov/kbj/

[Photo: Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson via thecrimson.com]

GBN Daily Drop Podcast: Ann Lowe – Fashion Designer for Harlem, Hollywood and the White House (LISTEN)

GBN Daily Drop Podcast: Ann Lowe – Fashion Designer for Harlem, Hollywood and the White House (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on February 16, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Today’s GBN Daily Drop podcast is based on the Wednesday, February 16 entry in the “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022 about haute couture designer and entrepreneur Ann Lowe.

You can also follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website (transcript below):

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Hey, this Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Wednesday, February 16th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.

As New York’s Fashion Week for 2022 concludes, today we take a look at esteemed designer and dressmaker Ann Lowe.

In 1914, when Ann Lowe was sixteen years old, her mother, who was a seamstress, died suddenly. Though grieving, Lowe finished her mother’s last job—creating four ball gowns for the First Lady of Alabama and launching her career as a designer of haute couture.

Years later, although she received no credit for either, Lowe made both actress Olivia de Havilland’s distinctive flower-covered dress for the 1946 Academy Awards and Jacqueline Kennedy’s iconic wedding dress in 1953.

Her store, Ann Lowe’s Gowns, opened in Harlem in 1950, and in 1968, when she opened a second location, Lowe became the first Black woman to own a boutique on Madison Avenue.

To learn more about Ann Lowe’s life and career, read Something To Prove: A Biography of Ann Lowe America’s Forgotten Designer by Julia Faye Smith, check out her designs on the Fashion Institute of Technology’s website, the National First Ladies Library lecture on Lowe that’s on YouTube, as well as links to other sources provided in today’s show notes as well as in the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.

Other sources for Lowe:

This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing, and available at workman.com, Amazon,Bookshop and other online retailers. Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.

For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.

(paid links)