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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) |
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US
Supreme
Court's
Jackson
urges
nation's
history
of
racism
to be
taught
By
Andrew
Chung
reuters.com
BIRMINGHAM,
AL -
U.S.
Supreme
Court
Justice
Ketanji
Brown
Jackson
on
Friday
called
for a
commitment
to
remember
and
teach
the
history
of
racism
and
violence
in the
United
States
as she
commemorated
the
deaths
of four
Black
girls
killed
by white
supremacists
in a
Birmingham,
Alabama,
church
bombing.
Jackson
delivered
the
keynote
address
at the
16th
Street
Baptist
Church
in
Birmingham,
where
members
of the
Ku Klux
Klan
carried
out the
bombing
60 years
ago on
Sept.
15,
1963.
"I know
that
atrocities
like the
one we
are
memorializing
today
are
difficult
to
remember
and
relive,
but I
also
know
that it
is
dangerous
to
forget
them,"
said
Jackson,
the
first
Black
woman to
serve on
the
nine-member
court,
who
completed
her
first
full
term in
June.
Jackson
used
part of
her
speech
as a
warning
against
"complacency
and
ignorance."
"Learning
about
our
country's
history
can be
painful,
but
history
is also
our best
teacher,"
she
said.
"Our
past is
filled
with too
much
violence,
too much
hatred,
too much
prejudice,
but can
we
really
say that
we are
not
confronting
those
same
evils
now? We
have to
own even
the
darkest
parts of
our
past,
understand
them,
and vow
never to
repeat
them."
The 1963
dynamite
bombing
killed
14-year-olds
Addie
Mae
Collins,
Carole
Robertson
and
Cynthia
Wesley,
and
11-year-old
Denise
McNair.
The
girls'
deaths
shocked
the
nation
and were
instrumental
to the
passage
of the
federal
Civil
Rights
Act of
1964.
Jackson's
speech
comes at
a time
of
conflict
in
several
states
over the
teaching
of
history
in
schools,
especially
in
Florida,
which
has
restricted
some
educational
efforts
regarding
racism,
slavery
and
LGBTQ
rights.
In July,
the
state
sparked
controversy
by
approving
new
guidelines
on
teaching
Black
history,
including
how
enslaved
people
acquired
skills
for
"personal
benefit."
Florida,
led by
Republican
2024
presidential
candidate
Governor
Ron
DeSantis,
is one
of
several
states
that
have
banned
the
teaching
"critical
race
theory,"
which
studies
racial
bias in
American
laws and
institutions.
Earlier
this
year,
Florida
barred
the
teaching
of
Advanced
Placement
class in
African
American
Studies,
prompting
over 800
academics
and
administrators
to
condemn
it as
censorship
and
attack
on
academic
freedom.
Jackson's
speech
echoed
her
dissent
last
June to
the
court's
landmark
ruling
effectively
ending
college
and
university
affirmative
action
policies
in
admissions.
Jackson
portrayed
that
ruling,
powered
by the
court's
six
conservative
members,
as
"ostrich-like,"
and
traced
the
history
of
racism
that
persisted
from
slavery
to the
present
day,
preventing
Black
Americans
from
gaining
wealth
and
excluding
them
from
opportunities
in
education
and
professional
life.
"Knowledge
emboldens
people
and it
frees
them,"
Jackson
said on
Friday.
"The
work of
our time
is
maintaining
that
hard won
freedom,
and to
do that
we're
going to
need the
truth,
the
whole
truth
about
our
past."
Reporting
by
Andrew
Chung in
New
York;
Editing
by
Aurora
Ellis
Our
Standards:
The
Thomson
Reuters
Trust
Principles.
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