President Joe Biden will officially make history when he announces Ketanji Brown Jackson as his nominee to become the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States.

A source close to the White House confirmed Brown Jackson as Biden’s pick. The president is expected to make the announcement Friday.

Judge Brown Jackson, 51, currently sits on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. She was confirmed in June 2021 by the U.S. Senate with bipartisan support. The vote was 55 to 44. 

Ketanji Brown Jackson, nominee to be U.S. Circuit Judge for the District of Columbia Circuit, testifies during her Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing in Dirksen Senate Office Building on April 28, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Photo By Tom Williams-Pool/Getty Images)

Republicans like Senator Lindsay Graham voted to confirm the judge who began her career in private practice in Washington, D.C. in 2002. In 2010, Brown Jackson served as the vice-chair and commissioner of the United States Sentencing Commission. During that same time she also served as a federal trial court judge for eight years. 

Brown Jackson comes from a family that is steeped in policing with an uncle and brother in Miami and Baltimore police departments. However, her family life is not without some commonality with many Black families. 

During Jackson’s early years in service as a public defender, she received a request from a distant uncle who was serving a life sentence on federal drug charges. She subsequently referred her uncle to a prominent Washington D.C. law firm that filed a petition for clemency for her uncle. Her uncle, Thomas Brown was released at 78 years old in 2016 when then-President Barack Obama commuted the sentence after he spent over 25 years in prison.

Many of her decisions have been publicized and deliberated on during her prior confirmation hearings. 

U.S. Congresswoman Frederica Wilson praised Brown Jackson’s nomination told theGrio, “I think it is especially impactful for me because Judge Brown Jackson is from Miami. She is from Miami, and I have known her family for years. Her father served as the school board attorney when I served on the school board. In fact, we hired them to hire him as the first Black School Board attorney.”

In this April photo, Ketanji Brown Jackson, nominated to be a U.S. Circuit Judge for the District of Columbia Circuit, is sworn in to testify before a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on pending judicial nominations. (Photo by Kevin Lamarque-Pool/Getty Images)

In the midst of the conflict in Ukraine, President Biden had been determined to make the historic decision by the end of February to mark Black History Month. Jen Psaki, White House Press Secretary, told theGrio in the daily briefing on Wednesday, “he is very much looking forward to making this announcement and getting this individual confirmed.”

Psaki went on to say just hours before the Russian strikes on Ukraine, “I think the president is looking forward to announcing a historic, eminently qualified Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court. He feels there’s tremendous honor in that he takes the role that every president has in selecting and nominating someone to the Supreme Court very seriously. That’s why he has been spending time not just studying bios, but also reviewing cases and engaging very closely with an internal team on this process.” 

Bishop Vashti McKenzie told theGrio, “This is an incredible moment in the history of our nation. Diversity and inclusion must never be left to chance. It must be intentional which makes this a bittersweet moment. You shouldn’t have to be that intentional to get our qualified best legal minds on the Supreme Court bench.”

She added, “Black women still have to be better than the best, work twice as hard often for less.”

This is a developing breaking news story. Check back to update.

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