Reconcilable Differences

“When John Greene, believed to be an ancestor of Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, got off a schooner from Trinidad in Charleston, S.C., he was immediately enslaved and dispatched to a plantation, according to family lore. When John Howland, the 10th-great-grandfather of Jackson’s husband, Patrick Jackson, disembarked the Mayflower at Plymouth, Mass., he was given housing and several acres … Ketanji Brown Jackson and Patrick Jackson are left with a historical subject in common: enslaved people. His ancestors owned them, while her ancestors were them.” WaPo (Gift Article): Ketanji Brown Jackson’s ancestors were enslaved. Her husband’s were enslavers.

+ “Opal Lee first made national headlines in 2016, when the then-89-year-old walked more than 1,400 miles from Fort Worth to Washington, D.C., in a campaign to convince lawmakers to recognize Juneteenth as a federal holiday (a designation it finally received in 2021). Seven years after her historic walk, Lee’s activism continues to make news.” Opal Lee, Fort Worth’s ‘Grandmother of Juneteenth,’ Is Still Marching at 96.