WASHINGTON — Black power broker Melanie Campbell knew that U.S. Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson would face very formidable — and oftentimes unfair — treatment during the days-long confirmation hearings.
Therefore, Campbell, the convener of the Black Women’s Roundtable, constructed a local and nationwide infrastructure designed to support, defend and protect Jackson as much as possible as this judge’s hearings at the U.S. Capitol inch along at a painstaking, glacial pace.
Campbell is also the CEO of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation. And she stormed into action to create a powerful and multipronged coalition of more than 60 organizations nationwide — including the National Council of Legal Women — to wrap their metaphorical arms around Jackson as she thrives inside the snakepit at Congress.
“History is a great teacher,” Campbell said emphatically to rolling out. “And when Black women and women of color have come up for powerful positions, like what Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is up for, which has never had happened in our history, we always have a hard time. It’s rare that you see that we are treated fairly. We knew that. And so we’ve been preparing for that.
The first thing Campbell and her colleagues did was to write a formal letter to their Congressional representatives urging fairness in the Supreme Court hearings and alerting them that the Black electorate is watching them intently. Then Campbell and her coalition of organizations hosted a rally in D.C. in support of Judge Jackson that made national headlines.
“On Wednesday, someone like (Republican) Senator Lindsey Graham from South Carolina has been really ridiculous and really unfair and using her as a political football,” Campbell exclaimed. “So people from South Carolina are making phone calls, as we speak, to call him and say, ‘We’re watching this, and this is not how you need to treat this candidate.’
“Even if you (Congressional committee members) don’t support her, you don’t have to disrespect her,” Campbell added. “And the whole thing about saying fairness is that you say you can be you say you always want to be fair, but it’s obvious that they’re not going to be.”
Campbell and crew have been flooding the phone lines on the Congressional committee members — and also imploring others to join in the effort — that they see who has “been unfair” to Judge Jackson.
Additionally, Campbell said she has colleagues across the country, who are the Who’s Who in the spiritual realm, conducting prayer vigils for Judge Jackson regularly. “We are leaving no stone unturned.”
Some of the hashtags that Campbell encourages those who want to participate is in the campaign to support Judge Jackon are: #ConfirmJudgeJackson, #WinWithBlackWomen, #BlackWomenLeadershipCollective.
You can also log onto BlackWomenTakeAction.org.
