American Pendulum II

In this episode of More Perfect, two families grapple with one terrible Supreme Court decision. Dred Scott v. Sandford is one of the most infamous cases in Supreme Court history: in 1857, a slave named Dred Scott filed a suit for his freedom and lost. In his decision, Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney wrote that black men “had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.”  One civil war and more than a century later, the Taneys and the Scotts reunite at a Hilton in Missouri to figure out what reconciliation looks like in the 21st century.

Photograph of Dred Scott, c. 1857

(Uncredited/Wikimedia Commons)

Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney

(Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs division/Wikimedia Commons)

Day 1 of the Dred Scott Sons and Daughters of Reconciliation conference at the Hilton Frontenac Hotel, December 2, 2016. Left to Right: Shannon LaNier (Thomas Jefferson descendant), Lynne Jackson (Dred Scott descendant), Bertram Hayes-Davis (Jefferson Davis descendant), Charlie Taney (Roger Brooke Taney descendant), Dred Scott Madison (Dred Scott descendant), Ashton LeBourgeois (Blow family descendant), John LeBourgeois (Blow family descendant), and Pastor Sylvester Turner.

(C. Webster, Courtesy of the Dred Scott Heritage Foundation/Black Tie Photos)

The key voices:

• Lynne Jackson, great-great-granddaughter of Dred and Harriet Scott, president and founder of the Dred Scott Heritage Foundation
• Dred Scott Madison, great-great-grandson of Dred Scott
• Barbara McGregory, great-great-granddaughter of Dred Scott
• Charlie Taney, great-great-grandnephew of Roger Brooke Taney, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court who wrote the Dred Scott v. Sandford decision
• Richard Josey, Manager of Programs at the Minnesota Historical Society

The key cases:

• 1857: Dred Scott v. Sandford

The key links:

• The Dred Scott Heritage Foundation 

Harriet Scott, wife of Dred Scott, 1857

(Noted from “Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, June 27,1857.” Minnesota Historical Society/Wikimedia Commons)

These quarters (now restored) at Fort Snelling in Minnesota are believed to have been occupied by Dred and Harriet Scott between roughly 1836–1840.

(McGhiever/Wikimedia Commons)

Special thanks to Kate Taney Billingsley, whose play, A Man of His Time, inspired the story.

Additional music for this episode by Gyan Riley.

Thanks to Soren Shade for production help.

Leadership support for More Perfect is provided by The Joyce Foundation. Additional funding is provided by The Charles Evans Hughes Memorial Foundation.

Supreme Court archival audio comes from Oyez®, a free law project in collaboration with the Legal Information Institute at Cornell.