June 19, 2021
Today is Juneteenth, our newest national holiday, which commemorates the end of slavery. Short for June 19th, Juneteenth has long been celebrated by African American communities in Texas. On June 19, 1865, enslaved people in Texas were finally told, two months after the Civil War had ended, that they were free.
It seems appropriate on this day to share photos from my recent visit to Gateway Arch National Park in St. Louis, Missouri. Why? Because at St. Louis’s Old Courthouse, which faces the Arch across a green plaza, an enslaved man named Dred Scott famously sued for his freedom in 1846, hoping to free not only himself but his wife, Harriet, and their children.
Dred Scott’s case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in 1857 that this was an issue of property rights, not human rights, and that Black Americans were not and never could be U.S. citizens, with all the rights that entails. This gross injustice galvanized Northerners and helped usher in the Civil War, ultimately leading to the end of slavery for all Black Americans.
Today Dred and Harriet are memorialized in a bronze statue that stands at the corner of the Old Courthouse.
A plaque explains the significance of the case and the Scotts’ courageous fight for their freedom.
The shameful legacy of slavery hangs over us all to this day. But in the story of Dred and Harriet, we can recognize the courage and tenacity of two Americans whose fight for liberty, though unsuccessful in the courts, helped lead to momentous change.
I’m thinking of them this Juneteenth.
Up next: A tour of St. Louis’s acclaimed Missouri Botanical Garden.
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