Booker praised Jackson’s “grit and grace” and “extraordinary demeanor” throughout the hearings and acknowledged the disrespect Jackson has endured when questioned by  Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.).

Booker recognized the “indignities that are still faced” by Black women. Still, he punctuated his speech with “I’m not letting anybody in the Senate steal my joy,” as he relished the fact that Jackson is the first Black woman nominated to the Supreme Court.

“You got here how every Black woman in America who’s gotten anywhere has done … like Ginger Rogers said: ‘I did everything Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in heels,'” Booker said, according to HuffPost.

He continued with his emotional remarks and commended her for being more than just a Black woman.

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson wipes away tears during Sen. Cory Booker’s speech: pic.twitter.com/YOYeJAOm1X

— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) March 23, 2022

“You’re a person who is so much more than your race and gender,” Booker said as he choked up. “It’s hard for me not to look at you and see my mom, my cousins … I see my ancestors and yours.”

“You have earned this spot. You are worthy. You are a great American. … You’re here. And I know what it’s taken for you to sit in that seat,” he added.

Booker said Jackson’s historic nomination is his “harbinger of hope” and is proof that “this country is getting better.”

Booker also chastised his Republican colleagues’ persistent questioning on her sentencing record concerning various child pornography offenders when she sat as a district judge. The right-wing legislators accused Brown of being too lenient on child predators, according to The Hill.

“This has been not a surprise, given the history that we all know, but perhaps a little bit of a disappointment, some of the things that have been said in this hearing,” Booker said of GOP senators’ attacks, which he described as “meritless to the point of demagoguery,” quoting the conservative National Review magazine.