Like many Americans, I watched the Supreme Court nomination hearings. After two days of GOP attacks, Senator Cory Booker’s tribute moved Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to tears. Booker finished with “Today, you are my star. You are my harbinger of hope. You have earned this spot and I know what it has taken for you to sit in that seat.”
Booker also quoted lines from the Langston Hughes poem “Let America Be America Again.” Published in a 1936 issue of Esquire Magazine, this poem captures feelings coming from America’s underclass and begs the Land of Liberty to fulfill its stated promises.
My favorite Langston Hughes poem is titled “I, Too.” This 1926 powerful poem is a mere 18 lines and is Hughes with his most optimistic outlook. The closing line of this poem is “I, too, am America.” It addresses the hope within the African-American community to have a physical and metaphorical seat at the table. However, with only three Republican votes, Judge Jackson now has a seat waiting for her at the Supreme Court’s table.
While Republican senators injected race-baiting into Jackson’s confirmation hearings, in the end, I was a little bit prouder of our beloved but still flawed America.
