Judge’s family apologizes 160 years after Dred Scott
By Associated Press
Published: March 7, 2017, 11:28am
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Charles Taney III, a descendant of U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney, center, offers apology to Lynne Jackson, a descendant of Dred Scott, right, on the 160th anniversary of the Dred Scott decision in front of the Maryland State House, Monday, March 6, 2017, in Annapolis, Md. On March 6, 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Dred Scott v. Sandford, ruled 7-2 that Scott, a slave, was not an American citizen and therefore could not sue for his freedom in federal court. (Kenneth K. Lam/The Baltimore Sun via AP)Photo Gallery
ANNAPOLIS, Md. — A family member of the chief justice who presided over the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott decision has apologized to the family of the slave who tried to sue for his freedom.
On Monday, the 160-year anniversary of the decision, Charles Taney IV of Greenwich, Connecticut, stood a few feet from a statue of his great-great-grand-uncle Roger Brooke Taney outside the Maryland State House and apologized for the decision, in which Roger Taney wrote that African-Americans could not have rights of their own and were inferior to white people.
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