The House is expected to take a pivotal first step in removing a bust of the fifth chief justice of the United States and Confederate statues from public display in the U.S. Capitol.
July 22, 2020, 6:50 PMJ. Scott Applewhite/AP
Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney, who was white, authored the majority opinion in the 1857 Dred Scott case that declared African Americans could never be citizens of the United States. The bill the House is voting on Wednesday would direct the architect of the Capitol to remove Taney’s bust and replace it with one of Thurgood Marshall, who in 1967 became the first Black justice to sit on the high court.
"Personally, as a black lawmaker, the presence of these statues represent an acceptance of white supremacy and racism, something we are fighting day in and day out to dismantle," she added. Scott, an enslaved Black man, sued for his freedom in a case that spanned a decade and reached the highest court in the country.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in June ordered the removal from the Capitol portraits of four of her predecessors who served in the Confederacy, saying that"we must lead by example."
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