On March 22, 1852, the Missouri Supreme Court decision on Dred Scott v. Emerson denied Dred Scott his freedom.
“We can draw a direct line from this church to the Scott v. Sanford case to Civil War to emancipation is a testament to the ministry nurtured here for 175 years,” said Louise LeBourgeois.
The Missouri ruling led to the 1857 U.S. Supreme Court decision that ruled “negroes descended from slaves, whether now free or slave, were not citizens of the United States.” Because they were not citizens they could not sue in a Federal court. It also maintained the federal government could not limit slavery to certain territories.
“Although Chief Justice Roger Taney’s racist distortions remain oft-quoted, (historian) Walter Ehrlich reminds us that it was Mrs. Emersons’ lawyer, Lyman Norris arguing before the Missouri Supreme Court in 1852, who introduced those dogmas of racial bigotry that henceforth would play such an important roll in the infamous Dred Scott Case,” said Lynne Jackson, Scott’s great-great-granddaughter and Dred Scott Heritage Foundation president.
170 years after the Missouri ruling, Speak To The City, One City Won, and the Dred Scott Heritage Foundation hosted a large congregation at Central Baptist Church celebrating Missouri’s official and overdue recognition of the Scott family’s fight for freedom.
A pair of concurrent bills sponsored by Rep. Raychel Proudie, D-Ferguson and Rep. Dottie Bailey, R-Fenton denouncing the 1852 decision passed unanimously in the House in March 2021.
“We declare the March 22, 1852, Missouri Supreme Court Dred Scott decision is fully and entirely renounced,” the resolution reads.
Sen. Mike Moon, R-Ash Grove, sought similar resolutions in previous sessions, when he was a member of the House. A version passed the House in 2018.
Sen. Steven Roberts, D-St. Louis, carried the resolution in the Senate, where it passed unanimously on April 29, 2021.
Charlie Taney, the great-great nephew of Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, who wrote the majority decision in the 1857 case, shared his experience with the Scott family, and deemed his relative’s ruling, “the worst-ever.”
“I asked for forgiveness from the Scott family and they forgave us,” Taney said.
“They hugged me and that became the basis of trust between our families. And since then, we’ve been working together, to bring Black and white Americans together. And as Jackson likes to say at the end of our talks, ‘if the Scotts and Taneys can come together in America, anyone can.’”
Louise LeBourgeois, is the great-great-great granddaughter of Charlotte Blow, a daughter of Dred Scott’s enslavers. She and her abolitionists siblings Henry and Taylor, would later help free Scott.
“They [Blows and Scotts] were able to love and nurture each other as was their innate human rights,” LeBourgeois said.
“The Blows as Dred Scott’s enslavers denied human rights. The Blows also assisted the Scott family in their fight for freedom. Between these truths lie the tension between acknowledging the horror of slavery and reaching for redemption, justice and reconciliation between the past we must reckon with and the future we envision, we move through the present holding the light of possibility.”
