The Supreme Court Of The United States Sanctioned Our Ancestors Oppressors

Historians have said that the worst Supreme Court decision in the entire history of the nation was decided on May 6, 1957, 163 years ago today. The decision was the historically significant unjust decision named for enslaved Dred Scott. Mr. Scott sought his freedom because he moved from a slave state to a free state. He felt that the moved allowed him to surrender ownership of his manhood from his slaveowner.

This decision made it clear that philosophy of white supremacy, white superiority, white oppression, white mob violence was now sanctioned by the highest court in the land. Roger “White Hood” Taney who was the Chief Justice of the Court wrote in his ruling the following:

“that slaves and their descendants, whether free or not, could not be American citizen and thus had no right to sue in federal court. The Court also ruled the Missouri Compromise of 1820 unconstitutional and banned Congress from outlawing slavery in new U.S. territories.”

This basically said with emphasis on a 7-2 majority vote that blacks whether free or enslaved had no rights that whites had to acknowledge,respect, or honor. It also opened the door to the further expansion of slavery beyond the southern and border states. It developed a consciousness in white that their feelings of absolute control of blacks was sanctioned and government approved. Some say that it lit the fuse to the explosive Civil War. It’s impact lasted and many cases continues to impact our society today with many bigoted whites still feeling that blacks have no rights that they have to respect.

The same man who wrote this horrendous decision was a law partner of the author of the poem, The Star Spangled Banner Francis Scott Key. No wonder there is an illness by many blacks in this nation regarding this nation’s national anthem. Francis Scott Key was as racist as Taney maybe even more if you analyze the third stanza of that song. The words written of the anthem are bathed in the racism that created the Dred Scott decision.

Although the Civil War Amendments supposedly gave the former slaves full citizenship rights. The Supreme Court again stole those rights away again with the Slaughterhouse judgement of 1873 which made paper thin the protected rights stated in the 15th Amendment, the Cruikshank decision which gave private businesses the right to ignore the equal protection rights of blacks, the 1896 Plessey judgement which sanctioned and basically eliminated the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments and finally the Hodges decision which gave wholesale approval to white mob injustice on southern blacks. The Supreme Court has been no friend for black justice historically. It has been the agent of judicial repression of black rights.

The evilness of judiciary oppression was illuminated by the Dred Scott decision of 1857 and franchised massive white supremacy for additional century or more. We still see the remnants and until repairs are adjudicated in those courts for the black population. America will never heal this racial sickness that has been woven into the fabric of our nation.