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The state of Maryland commissioned a plaque commemorating the infamous Dread Scott decision.

Nearly 150 years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a seemingly knockout blow against those that wanted freedom for all peoples within the our nation, crushing the hopes of Dred Scott and all enslaved Black people that wished to be free.

Now that decision has been immortalized in bronze for all of eternity to learn from in the town of Frederick, Maryland, resting upon a granite pedestal outside of Frederick City Hall. Ironically, the plaque rests only eight feet away from the bust of Justice Roger Brooke Taney, the man that wrote the decision for the Dred Scott case.

With 15% of Frederick’s population being Black, the move serves as a social compromise of sorts between the majority and minority populations of the town located about 50 miles from Washington and Baltimore.

Several citizens have called for the removal of Chief Justice Taney’s bust, due to his well-documented history of racial intolerance and bigotry, while others have defended the statuette as nothing more than a representation of a man who’s “racial view reflected the tenor of his times.”

Taney’s decision was based on the assertion and common belief of that day that stated Black people, or “negroes,” were “beings of inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race.”