Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson joins Michelle Obama on IMO podcast

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson joined Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson on IMO, the Higher Ground podcast built around listener dilemmas and weekly guests, putting two of the most visible Black women in public life in the same conversation. The podcast’s Instagram account promoted the appearance with the line, “Tomorrow on IMO we’re honored to have Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson join us. We could all use a reminder to live our lives with just a little more courage.”

IMO launched in 2025 and is distributed on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Art19. One of its launch pages is titled “Michelle Obama & Craig Robinson Start a Podcast | IMO,” and the show description says Obama and her brother bring candid perspectives to listeners’ personal dilemmas and are joined each week by special guests. That format made Jackson’s visit more than a celebrity booking. It placed a Supreme Court justice, a former first lady and a presidential family member into a setting built for talking about pressure, choices and the strain of being seen.

Jackson arrives with a history that has long carried outsized public meaning. When President Joe Biden nominated her on Feb. 25, 2022, CBS News reported that she was 51 and would have been the first Black woman on the Supreme Court if confirmed. The same report said she would have been the second-youngest justice behind Amy Coney Barrett, and that her confirmation would have meant two African-American justices and four women on the Court.

Her confirmation in April 2022 carried that symbolism forward. In CNN coverage at the time, Michelle Obama said Jackson gave Black women and girls “a new dream to dream.” The line captured what Jackson’s rise represented beyond the bench: a public servant being asked to carry the weight of history, institutional trust and representation at once.

Jackson has continued to show up in public-facing legal and educational settings. On Feb. 25, 2025, the Library of Congress posted a Supreme Court Fellows Program lecture featuring Jackson, and said the event was live-streamed on YouTube. That appearance, like the podcast conversation, kept her in the role of visible guide as much as jurist.

The pairing of Obama and Jackson underscored how often Black women at the highest levels of American life are expected to embody resilience while helping institutions look more relatable, more credible and more human.