Today, #SheWillRise is releasing our short list choices of Black women for the Supreme Court.

SCOTUS is 231 years old and not one Black woman has ever been confirmed, or even nominated, to serve on it.

Follow the thread to see our choices.

Michelle Alexander is the Visiting Professor of Social Justice at Union Theological Seminary in NYC.

Her award-winning book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, sparked a national debate about the crisis of mass incarceration #SheWillRise

Chief Justice Cheri Beasley is the first African-American woman in the North Carolina Supreme Court’s 200-year history to serve as Chief Justice. #SheWillRise

Elise Boddie ( @eliseboddie) is a Professor of Law at @RutgersU.

She is a nationally-recognized expert in civil rights and award-winning legal scholar, previously served as director of litigation for the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund. #SheWillRise

Kristen Clarke ( @KristenClarkeJD) leads the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, an organization aimed at securing equal justice for all through the law, with a particular focus on the inequalities confronting African Americans & other communities of color. #SheWillRise

Justice Anita Earls serves as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of NC.

She founded and is the past executive director of the Southern Coalition for Social Justice. She previously served as deputy assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the U.S. DOJ. #SheWillRise

Fatima Goss Graves ( @FGossGraves) leads the National Women’s Law Center, an organization that has been on the frontlines of advancing gender justice in the courts and in the government since the 1970s.

#SheWillRise

Sherrilyn Ifill ( @Sifill_LDF) leads NAACP LDF, an org established in 1940 by Thurgood Marshall with the mission of defending and advancing racial justice through litigation, advocacy, and public education.
#SheWillRise

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is a federal judge on the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.

She previously served as a vice chair and commissioner of the United States Sentencing Commission.
#SheWillRise

Leondra R. Kruger is an Associate Justice on California’s Supreme Court. She was sworn in on January 5, 2015, and became the court's second African-American woman justice, following Janice Rogers Brown.

#SheWillRise

Catherine E. Lhamon ( @CatherineLhamon) is Chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights

Lhamon has also served in the cabinet of CA Gov. Newsom as Legal Affairs Secretary and previously litigated civil rights cases at the National Center for Youth Law

#SheWillRise

Melissa Murray ( @ProfMMurray) is the Frederick I. and Grace Stokes Professor of Law at NYU.

Murray is a leading expert in family law, constitutional law, and reproductive rights and justice.

#SheWillRise

Justice Adrienne Nelson was the first African American in Oregon’s history to sit on the state’s highest court and on any appellate state court.

Her election to a six-year term in November 2018 made her the first African American woman elected statewide in Oregon.
#SheWillRise

Janai Nelson ( @JNelsonLDF) is Associate Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF).

Nelson works with the President and Director-Counsel to determine and execute LDF’s strategic vision and oversee the operation of its programs
#SheWillRise

L. Song Richardson is Dean & Chancellor’s Prof of Law at the UC, Irvine School of Law w/ joint appointments in the Dept of Criminology, Law, & Society & in the Dept of Asian American Studies

At the time of her appointment, she was the only woman of color to lead a top 30 school