I grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, in the 1960s and 1970s, integrating every school I attended. During this confusing time, I saw a striking photograph of Constance Baker Motley in the pages of Vogue. She would go on to point the way forward for me, even though we never met.

Of course, I already knew about Motley – my whole neighborhood did. The child of West Indian immigrants, she’d graduated from law school at Columbia and been hired by Thurgood Marshall to work at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Motley would go on to expand the idea of what was possible for women. We see this most easily when we look at Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, but Motley’s work was equally beneficial to Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

Vogue had profiled her because she was the first African American woman appointed to a federal bench. But more important to my young self was the fact that she looked like me. I knew instinctively that this was a woman who would know something about breaking barriers. So I cut out that picture and carried it with me for years.

Eventually, the photo got lost in the many twists and turns and expansions it inspired. But I carry it with me in my heart and look at it often.

I grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, in the 1960s and 1970s, integrating every school I attended. My parents considered a good education the acme of achievement, a way to pry open the door that led to a better life. They were willing to sacrifice to make sure my brother and sisters and I got one.

We were, of course, grateful for this, even though getting a “good education” meant leaving our friends and the neighborhood we lived in and driving across town toward a great and all-enveloping unknown. Our father had been the first in his family to graduate from college and then from medical school. It hadn’t been easy. He was a legend in our local community, but not in the larger world we were entering. We had seen our father have his share of trouble in that world too. This was a new reality for all of us. How would we manage it? Where would we land? There was no road map to guide us.

During this confusing time, I found solace losing myself in books and periodicals. I had my first subscription to Vogue magazine by the time I was 11, saving up for it on a 50-cent-a-week allowance.

In the pages of Vogue, I encountered a striking photograph of Constance Baker Motley, a woman who would point the way forward, even though I never met her.

After all these years, I recall that picture minutely. She sat on a chair, smiling that trademark, enigmatic smile and looking straight out into the world. Looking, I felt, straight out at me. You couldn’t see her legs in the picture, but you knew they were crossed discreetly at the ankle because this was the way “ladies” were taught to sit back then. And Motley was very much a lady in her smart sheath dress, her stranded pearl necklace.

This was the age of women like Jackie Kennedy, and Constance could well have been Jackie. Except that she was a lawyer. And she was Black. And she was the first person who looked like me I’d ever seen in a national magazine not devoted to the news. Vogue had profiled her because she was the first African American woman appointed to a federal bench. But more important to my young self was the fact that she looked like me – and my mother and my sisters and our family and our neighbors. I knew instinctively that this was a woman who would know something about breaking barriers.