Not Even Past: Dred Scott Reprise

More Perfect

WNYC Studios

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

4.8 • 14.7K Ratings

🗓️ 20 July 2023

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Dred Scott v. Sandford is one of the most infamous cases in Supreme Court history: in 1857, an enslaved person 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.

Voices in the episode include:

• Lynne Jackson — great-great-granddaughter of Dred and Harriet Scott, and 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

Learn more:

• 1857: Dred Scott v. Sandford

• The Dred Scott Heritage Foundation

Special thanks to Kate Taney Billingsley, whose play, "A Man of His Time," inspired the episode; and to Soren Shade for production help. Additional music for this episode by Gyan Riley.

Shadow dockets, term limits, amicus briefs — what puzzles you about the Supreme Court? What stories are you curious about? We want to answer your questions in our next season. Click here to leave us a voice memo.

Supreme Court archival audio comes from Oyez®, a free law project by Justia and the Legal Information Institute of Cornell Law School.

Support for More Perfect is provided in part by The Smart Family Fund.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	The true symbol of the United States is not the bald eagle, it is the pendulum.
0:12.9	And when the pendulum swings too far in one direction, it will go back, back, back,
0:25.3	back. This is more perfect, I'm Julia LaGoria.
0:34.3	Before we started working on this season, we asked you, our listeners, to share your
0:40.4	questions, your concerns, your general thoughts about the court today. And going through the
0:46.6	many lovely voice notes we got from you, I stumbled upon this one from a teacher.
0:54.3	Hi guys, my name is Carly Howie. I teach American history to high schoolers.
1:00.6	Talking about how she explains the court to her students through a metaphor we mentioned
1:05.6	in a past season.
1:07.1	And I specifically referenced the idea of the American pendulum and how we're kind of
1:13.1	swinging back and forth where different groups with different ideas hold power at different
1:19.7	times and we can look back and say how today's court is on one of those swings it takes
1:25.3	from time to time.
1:27.5	And I ended this school year reinforcing that idea of the pendulum and we will eventually
1:35.8	swing in a more liberal direction.
1:40.1	And how difficult it can feel when you're on the other side waiting for the pendulum to
1:44.8	swing back.
1:49.5	So today, we are going to replay an old episode of more perfect. Fun fact, it's the very
1:56.6	first one I ever reported.
1:59.5	When we looked back at a time when the court took a swing in a very dark direction.
2:06.1	When the Chief Justice wrote what might just be the most horrible decision the court has
2:10.6	ever made.
	...

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