American Pendulum II

More Perfect

WNYC Studios

Wnyc, Scotus, Perfect, History, Court, More, Documentary, Courses, Supreme, Education, Society & Culture

4.8 • 14.7K Ratings

🗓️ 2 October 2017

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode of More Perfect, how 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.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Leadership support for More Perfect is provided by the Joyce Foundation.
0:10.6	The true symbol of the United States is not the bald eagle.
0:16.8	It is the pendulum.
0:19.1	And when the pendulum swings too far in one direction, it will go back.
0:27.1	Back, back, back.
0:29.6	Back, back, back.
0:31.6	It will come back.
0:33.4	Hey, I'm Chad Abumarad. This is More Perfect.
0:37.5	A series about the cases that land in front of the Supreme Court and in this episode,
0:43.7	which we might as well call pendulum part two. We're going to take a deep dive into what might be
0:48.7	the most horrible Supreme Court decision ever, and an attempt 160 years after the fact in a
0:56.5	Hilton Hotel ballroom to finally set it right.
1:13.3	This is a case that split the United States into.
1:18.8	So the case in question is the Dread Scott case, which if you ask people,
1:25.0	I was wondering if you've ever heard of the Dread Scott court case.
1:29.3	The Dread Scott sounds familiar.
1:32.0	It doesn't go well. Nothing coming up.
1:33.8	Man, I don't know. My high school history teacher would be really mad at me right now.
1:38.5	I don't remember any name.
1:39.7	Remember nothing?
1:40.7	Yeah, we get a lot of people who are like, was that like a civil rights thing?
1:44.5	Probably something to do with segregation.
	...

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