Justice Goodwine talks challenges, being a force for change at African-American Heritage Breakfast

Saturday morning marked the 30th annual African-American Heritage Breakfast hosted by the Modernette's Civic Club, and it was a packed house as folks gathered to celebrate Black excellence, history and achievement.

Pamela Goodwine has quite the list of accomplishments, serving as a district and circuit judge in Fayette County and serving as the first Black woman to serve on both the Kentucky Court of Appeals and the Kentucky Supreme Court. But earlier in her life, she faced an onslaught of challenges and struggles that might have made another person lay down and call it a day.

Telling her life story Saturday morning, Justice Goodwine says she lost her father to cancer, and then her mother was killed in an act of domestic violence by a family member when she was about 20-years-old. Those losses set her on a path of grief and despair that she says she almost never recovered from, while also battling an unknown illness, but finally she found her way to Macedonia Baptist Church in Lexington.

Not long after that, she ended up in the hospital in a bad state, plagued with pain and illness, but she says her church family never left her side. Eventually, after falling into a coma that last roughly a month, Goodwine was diagnosed with Crohn's Disease, resulting in several surgeries. She says she woke from that with a renewed vision.

She was told that Crohn's Disease is not curable and she should live a stress-free life, but she had a goal and a dream, and wasn't going to let anything stop her now.

After earning her law degree at the University of Kentucky in 1994, she worked for several years at a private law firm and during the interview for that job, they asked her what it is she wanted to do with that degree, she told them she wanted to serve on the Supreme Court. Goodwine says she saw this as an opportunity not just for herself, but in opening doors for others.

She presided over Fayette County Specialty Court from 2011 until her election to the Kentucky Court of Appeals in November 2018, and then she was elected to the Kentucky Supreme Court in 2024. Speaking from her heart Saturday, Justice Goodwine reflected on how far she had come from the young woman who lost her parents, and she says if we all work together, we can help others achieve their own dreams.

She says we can use our voices to empower others, our influence to make a better and more equal future for all--together, we can rise above and achieve any goal.

Proceeds raised during the Heritage Breakfast goes back into supporting scholarships through the Modernette's, which recently celebrated their 60th anniversary of community service and advocacy.

Thanks to Human Rights Commission Executive Assistant Jada Morris for help with recording.