NEW YORK (AP) Senator, she said, letting out an audible sigh.

In that singular moment, Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson spoke for countless Black women who have had to gather all the patience, strength and grace within to answer insinuating questions about their credentials, qualifications and character.

It was Day One of questioning at the Senate Judiciary Committee as the Harvard-educated Jackson, the first Black woman to be nominated for the nations highest court , was making history.

The federal judge had to endure hours of public scrutiny from skeptics, namely the Republican senators who are erecting a wall of opposition to her landmark nomination, the first in the courts 233-year history, and may vote en bloc against her confirmation.

It was really traumatizing to watch, said Melanie L. Campbell, president and CEO of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation and convener of the Black Womens Roundtable.

From questioning of Jacksons view of books on critical race theory that drew her exasperated sigh They dont come up in my work as a judge, she said to the loaded suggestion that the sentences she imposed on child pornography defendants were too lenient, the questions from the Republicans tapped into long-standing American grievances over race, class and public safety.

The insinuations that Jackson, a distinguished jurist and mother of two, is a secret radical liberal or poses a danger to the safety of children felt to some supporters as yet another example of highly qualified Black women having to endure indignities and distortions of their credentials, even as they shatter racial barriers in American society.

Campbell told The Associated Press that the othering of her, in a sense, like shes against our children, seemed like a tired political tactic.

My spirit feels it was to bring this Black woman down because shes about to break the glass ceiling that, once broken, opens the door to more.

Democrats praise President Joe Biden s choice of Jackson as long overdue, a chance to start making the court more reflective of the diverse nation it serves. But they have been slow to bolster the judges nomination against the unrelenting attacks and instead allowed them to linger.

Over and over during her hearings, Republican Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Josh Hawley of Missouri hammered Jackson on a handful of the many cases she handled as a judge, asking if she regretted having a record that, in their view, is soft on child pornography defendants.