Mood as light as spring air as Ketanji Brown Jackson delivers words to remember

They could all feel the weight of history. Yet the mood was as light as spring air when Ketanji Brown Jackson looked out at the crowd of smiling faces.

The audience on the South Lawn of the White House rose and clapped and hollered with a rare purity of emotion.

It felt like the culmination of a journey. A day earlier, Jackson was confirmed by the Senate as the first African American female supreme court justice. In moving remarks on Friday, she spoke not only of her journey but that of her ancestors: the 400-year story of African Americans meeting slavery and segregation with resilience, creativity and hope.

There was applause and she took a deep breath.

A shiver of emotion ran through the crowd, which rose as one. It included Jesse Jackson, 80, a civil rights veteran who was there when King was assassinated.

Her voice quivering with feeling that seemed to match the enormity of the moment, Jackson, watched by her parents, husband and daughters, went on.

It was hard to believe this was the same country that less than two years ago staged a similar outdoor event for the justice nominated before Jackson, Amy Coney Barrett.

Jackson is replacing the retiring Stephen Breyer, 83, and so liberals will remain firmly in the minority when, from October, she begins hearing vital cases on affirmative action, gay rights and voting rights.