The great-great-granddaughter of Dred and Harriet Scott will speak Tuesday at Lincoln University, the university announced Friday.
The Scotts' descendant Lynne M. Jackson is president and founder of the Dred Scott Heritage Foundation, according to a news release from LU.
Jackson will speak at 7 p.m. in the Thomas D. Pawley Theatre in Martin Luther King Hall, 812 E. Dunklin St. Doors will open at 6:30 p.m., and the event is free and open to the public.
Dred Scott is the namesake of the Dred Scott v. Sandford U.S. Supreme Court case. The court's opinion on the case, issued in 1857, declared "slaves were not citizens of the United States and could not sue in federal courts. In addition, this decision declared that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional and that Congress did not have the authority to prohibit slavery in the territories," according to the Library of Congress.
Scott was a slave who had lived in the free state of Illinois and free territory of Wisconsin, but the court's ruling meant he was not entitled to his freedom.
"This decision added fuel to the growing discourse that would eventually lead to the Civil War," according to LU's news release.
LU added, "Jackson will speak on her work to bring together the descendants of former slaves with former slaveowners in an effort toward 'reconciliation of our histories with an eye towards helping to heal the wounds of the past,'" and her audiences have included elementary school students and Ivy League-educated scholars.