Leigh Ann Brown didn’t want Hopkinsville to miss the chance to be represented among communities across the country having memorials for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
So in a matter of hours, Brown made plans and put out the word that anyone who was interested could join her Saturday evening outside the Christian County Justice Center. About 40 people turned out.
Ginsburg, who died Friday at age 87, was an example for anyone who cared about equality, Brown said in brief remarks before a moment of silence was observed.
Brown reminded the gathering that Ginsburg didn’t fight only for women’s rights. In fact, in the 1970s she successfully argued before the Supreme Court that a widowed father deserved Social Security survivor benefits after his wife died in childbirth.
“It wasn’t just about us as women, even though she was our champion,” Brown said. “It was about all of us, and that obviously is her legacy. She spent every moment until she died fighting for that.”
Ginsburg was a role model, “no matter what our politics,” Brown said.
As the second female justice on the highest court, she served for 27 years and became a leader of the liberal bloc as the court became more conservative. She wrote many of the court’s dissenting opinions.
“She was going to be heard,” said Becky Dearman, who answered Brown’s call to honor her legacy in front of the justice center.
Dearman said she also respected that Ginsburg understood the importance of making an argument that others could at least hear.
Ginsburg is remembered for saying, “Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.”
“I am very grateful to have been living in a world with Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but now the world feels a little smaller without her,” Dearman said. “It feels like a time to fight like hell. To fight like Ruth.”
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Jennifer P. Brown is co-founder, publisher and editor of Hoptown Chronicle. You can reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org. Brown was a reporter and editor at the Kentucky New Era, where she worked for 30 years. She is a co-chair of the national advisory board to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, governing board past president for the Kentucky Historical Society, and co-founder of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition. She serves on the Hopkinsville History Foundation's board.
