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Janice Rogers Brown: From Humble Beginnings to the Calif. High Court

By David Brody
Congressional Correspondent

CBN.com – WASHINGTON – She is the daughter of a sharecropper, and she rose to become a justice on the supreme court of the largest state in the country. Now she is at the center of a bitter battle in the Senate over judges.

Today we have a story you will not see anywhere else. We take you out of the Senate chamber for an exclusive look at the amazing life of Janice Rogers Brown.

The story of Rogers Brown has humble beginnings. Her father was a sharecropper in Alabama, not exactly a prestigious title. In the 1950's, life was tough. Money was scarce. As a little girl, her world was centered in the deep South, in a small town called Luverne, Alabama.

Segregation was a reality. Black and whites in separate schools, separate bathrooms and separated on the bus. The people in Luverne, Alabama call their hometown the friendliest city in the south. But for little Janice, her reality was different. She saw segregation up close and the images were disturbing. But out of it came a passion, a passion for justice, a passion to become a lawyer.

Back then, Dr. Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks were grabbing the headlines, during the beginning stages of the Civil Rights Movement.

King stated, "We cannot, in clear conscience, turn back in our struggle for justice."

Janice, though, was just as impressed with a lawyer named Fred Gray, who defended both King and Parks at the time -- proof, she has said, that you can be a decent person and a lawyer too!

Eighty-five-year-old Havard Richburg is a long-time family friend. Havard says Janice heard all about Fred Gray from her grandparents. But he also remembers what they told her about getting an education.

Richburg said, "We want you to move into the arena of education because that is the cure. That is the good medicine."

Janice heard that message loud and clear in this house. It is still owned by the family today. Her uncle, aunt and cousin all came by to tell CBN News how proud they are that Janice beat the odds.

Irvin Anderson, Janet's uncle, said, "When I look at her, it's just amazing that that type of product could come out of an area like here, where [there’s] very, very little chance that an individual of her color or race could possibly excel in this area the way she did."

For Janice's family, church was deeply important, a way of life. The one they attended is still standing in Luverne today. Her cousin James says the family did not just show up for church. They were active participants.

James Kolb said, "They didn't go to church to make a number. They didn't go to church to raise a collection.”

So, armed with a biblical foundation and a passion for being a lawyer, Janice left her small town of Luverne in her teens, and eventually ended up in Sacramento. That is where her legal career took off, starting with graduating from law school at UCLA, then into government, and eventually working her way up to sit on California's supreme court, the first black woman ever to do so.

As you can imagine, she has one proud mom. CBN News spoke with her in an exclusive interview at her home near Sacramento.

Janice's mom is Doris Holland. She said, "I am very proud of her. I am just as proud as any mother can be."

Even from an early age, she knew education would play a key part in her daughter's life.

Holland said, "You could look for Jan, and find her any time in her room with a book. You know she just loved to read."

But for all the accolades and praise from family and friends, her reception in Washington among Democrats in the Senate has not been pleasant.

Minority Leader Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) said, "Her opinions, if they weren't on such serious matters, would be laughable."

Democrats who are blocking her nomination say she is out of the mainstream and a judicial activist. They say her decisions and speeches show her to be opposed to government, abortion and even hostile to civil rights. They say that because she has ruled against affirmative action programs in the past.

Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) remarked, "We are not going to turn back by appointing judges to lifetime positions who will bring us and return us back to those days of discrimination and prejudice."

In her confirmation hearing two years ago, Justice Brown tried to address the concern of Kennedy and others.

"Probably the most important thing that we have ever done is to try and guarantee people equality under the law,” said Rogers Brown. “And maybe that's because I have lived in a time when that was not so."

Her mom admits that the unfair criticism bothers her, and Janice, too, to a certain degree.

Holland said, "She hides it very well, but I know that it bothers her because it bothers me. Some of it is so negative. They take some things that she says out of context."

She added, "It hurts, but I pray a lot. God does answer prayer."

Part of why Democrats are so opposed to Brown is because of comments in some of her speeches, like this one: “Where government advances and it advances relentlessly, freedom is imperiled; community impoverished; religion marginalized and civilization itself jeopardized...”

And in another speech, she said, “These are perilous times for people of faith, not in the sense that we are going to lose our lives, but in the sense that it will cost you something if you are a person of faith who stands up for what you believe in, and say those things out loud."

Her mom believes that outspokenness does not sit well with her opposition. Holland said, "She tells it like it is. And they don't like it…They don't like to hear the truth."

For Rogers Brown, the Sacramento area has not only been a home for decades, it has also been the place where she stays biblically grounded. She has been a member of the Cordova Church of Christ outside of Sacramento for almost 30 years.

Cordova Pastor Chris Goldman commented, "She is able to have those beliefs, make those comments, come across very passionately about them, but understand that when I go to the bench, my job is interpreting the law."

And her pastor says that for anyone who thinks her personal views get in the way of her judicial decisions, he has a story to tell.

"One of our members got very upset with her about one of the rulings that she actually wrote the opinion on,” said Goldman. “and I enjoyed watching from a distance as she so calmly and lovingly explained to this individual, if you have a problem with that law, change the legislature. But in my job, I have to decide what the law says, and stick to the law. It's not my job to change the law."

Republicans say that stories like that are proof-positive that Justice Brown is no judicial activist.

Majority Leader Sen. Bill Frist (R-TN) said, "We will give Janice Rogers Brown a fair up-or-down vote on the floor of the United States Senate."

They say that what this is really about is the Democrats worst nightmare: a principled, strongly conservative black American woman, who not only may get to sit on the D.C. Court of Appeals, one of the most powerful appeals courts in the nation. But possibly the U.S. Supreme Court.

She has been talked about for that as well. Meanwhile, though Justice Rogers Brown sits and waits, waiting for that up-or-down vote that may or may not happen.

Rogers Brown’s mom summed it up, saying,” I figure if it's God's will, it'll happen and if it's not, then it won't. And however it goes, we'll live with it. We will have to live with it."

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