Although this event has passed, you can still purchase a digital pass to view the recording until 11:59 p.m. on September 16, 2024.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman to ever be appointed to the US Supreme Court, chronicles her life story and her extraordinary path to becoming a jurist on America’s highest court in this inspiring, intimate memoir. With this unflinching account, Lovely One: A Memoir invites readers into her life and world, tracing her family’s ascent from segregation to her confirmation on America’s highest court within the span of one generation.
Q&A with Melinda French Gates.
All Create Your Own Series (CYOS) and Super SAL subscription tickets include a copy of Lovely One, shipped to the ticket holder’s door by our partner bookstore, Elliott Bay Book Company. All single tickets have the option to include a copy of Lovely One.
Please note: for this event, two additional security measures will be in place: metal detection and bag checks at the lobby doors, and no bags larger than 8.5 x 11″ allowed into the lobby or auditorium. The lobby and box office will open at 5:30 p.m.
Named “Ketanji Onyika,” meaning “Lovely One,” based on a suggestion from her aunt, a Peace Corps worker stationed in West Africa, Justice Jackson learned from her educator parents to take pride in her heritage since birth. She describes her resolve as a young girl to honor this legacy and realize her dreams: from hearing stories of her grandparents and parents breaking barriers in the segregated South, to honing her voice in high school as an oratory champion and student body president, to graduating magna cum laude from Harvard, where she performed in musical theater and improv and participated in pivotal student organizations.
Here, Justice Jackson pulls back the curtain, marrying the public record of her life with what is less known. She reveals what it takes to advance in the legal profession when most people in power don’t look like you, and to reconcile a demanding career with the joys and sacrifices of marriage and motherhood.
Through trials and triumphs, Justice Jackson’s journey will resonate with dreamers everywhere, especially those who nourish outsized ambitions and refuse to be turned aside. This moving, openhearted tale will spread hope for a more just world, for generations to come.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was born in Washington, D.C. and grew up in Miami, Florida. She received her undergraduate and law degrees, both with honors, from Harvard University, then served as a law clerk for three federal judges, including Associate Justice Stephen G. Breyer of the Supreme Court of the United States. Jackson subsequently practiced law in the private sector, worked as an attorney, and later as Vice Chair, at the U.S. Sentencing Commission, and served as an assistant federal public defender. In 2013, President Barack Obama appointed Jackson to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Elevated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 2021, Jackson made history in 2022 when President Joseph Biden nominated her as an Associate Justice. The first Black woman ever confirmed to the Supreme Court of the United States, she took her seat on June 30, 2022.
Melinda French Gates is a philanthropist, businesswoman, and global advocate for women and girls.
For over 25 years, Melinda has led efforts to unlock a healthier, more prosperous, more equal future. Today, she heads Pivotal, an organization she formed in 2015 that works to accelerate the pace of progress and advance women’s power and influence in the U.S. and around the world. Previously, she founded and co-chaired the Gates Foundation, where, for more than two decades, she set the direction and priorities of the world’s largest philanthropy. Melinda is also the author of the bestselling book The Moment of Lift and the creator of Moment of Lift Books, an imprint publishing original nonfiction by visionaries working to unlock a more equal world.
Melinda grew up in Dallas, Texas and attended Duke University, where she received a bachelor’s degree in computer science and economics and an MBA. She spent the first decade of her career developing multimedia products at Microsoft before leaving the company to focus on her family and philanthropic work. Melinda has three children—Jenn, Rory, and Phoebe—and lives in Seattle, Washington.
