The piece, provocatively headlined "Ketanji Brown Jackson’s ancestors were enslaved. Her husband’s were enslavers," delved deep into the complex backgrounds of the pair, offering insight into the historical legacy of slavery that defines both families.
The article spun a narrative tale of their forebears. For instance, a man thought to be Justice Jackson's ancestor, John Greene, had faced the harsh reality of enslavement upon his arrival from Trinidad in Charleston, S.C. In contrast, Patrick Jackson's 10th great-grandfather, John Howland, stepped off the Mayflower at Plymouth, Mass., and was granted housing and acres of land.
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Justice Jackson, whose seat on the Supreme Court bench counts her among the nation's nine most influential legal minds, traces her lineage through generations entwined with the abhorrent practice of slavery and exploitative sharecropping. Her husband, a respected gastrointestinal surgeon in the nation's capital, boasts an illustrious family line connecting to royalty, early American settlers, and constitutional signatories.
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Christopher C. Child, a senior New England Historic Genealogical Society genealogist, corroborated the Washington Post's research. He unearthed that Patrick Jackson's forefather, Peter Chardon Brooks, was once the wealthiest man in New England, with a substantial portion of his fortune sourced from insuring ships involved in the slave trade.
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Patrick Jackson's ties to the Southern slave-owning class were further revealed. Public slave schedules from the 1850s and 1860s indicate that his ancestors owned approximately 189 enslaved individuals. The genealogist surmised that every male relative of Patrick's maternal grandfather, who was of legal age in 1850 or 1860, was a slaveowner, with one even serving as a Confederate soldier.
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The story elicited a range of responses. Jeremy Redfern, press secretary for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, criticized exploring such a personal topic on social media. "What an insane premise to discuss someone’s marriage," he wrote, summarizing the article as, "She was oppressed. He was the oppressor," despite neither Justice Jackson nor her husband having any personal involvement with their ancestors' actions more than a century ago.
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Some of Justice Jackson's family appeared to accept the past without reservation. Her uncle, Calvin Ross, offered an optimistic perspective to The Post, stating, "We had two people who loved each other, and that was enough. You can’t rewrite history. It is what it is."
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Reflecting on the diversity of their backgrounds, Justice Jackson once mused, "We were an unlikely pair in many respects, but somehow we found each other." Despite repeated requests, neither Justice Jackson nor her husband offered additional comments to The Washington Post.
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