Photos courtesy of Mr. Wiley Price, Mr. David Grove, and Mrs. Connie Eller, KSDK News.
Category Archives: Commemoration
GRAND REOPENING OF THE OLD COURTHOUSE AND FESTIVAL IS MAY 3, 2025
After being closed for 5 years, the Old Courthouse in St. Louis will celebrate its long-awaited Grand Reopening on Saturday, May 3 at 10:00 a.m. with a ribbon cutting ceremony. Along with totally revised galleries on the first floor and an expanded and beautifully attired new book store and gift shop, there is now an elevator to the second floor.
The building is now telling more of the stories of the history of the cases, uses, purpose and construction of the edifice.
Mock trails will continue to be held on the first floor’s new courtroom as well as in the refurbished original courtrooms upstairs.
Dred and Harriet Scott have a new gallery dedicated to the legacy of the impact of their story.
Special guests will join the occasion that day.
Cbabi Bayoc is the designer of the festival’s theme.
Across from the Scott’s room is the Pathways to Freedom gallery that explores African-American life in St. Louis, etc.
The festival will take place in Kiener Plaza until 3 p.m. The courthouse will be open for visitors throughout the day until its closings at 5 pm. The public is invited.
Gateway Arch Park Foundation – Old Court Grand Reopening
Governor Parsons Pardons Former Slave Celia Newsom on December 20, 2025
Great-great granddaughter of Celia Newsom, Pamela Westbrooks-Hodge, secured a pardon from Missouri Governor Mike Parson upon leaving office on Dec 20, 2024.
Letter in Support of Pardon of Celia Newsom
Constitution Day Special
166 YEARS AGO ON SEPTEMBER 17, 1858
DRED SCOTT DIED ON WHAT IS
CONSTITUTION DAY
In honor of his life and passing, the DSHF created a special commemorative pocket sized constitution booklet in 2023. This handsome keepsake has a black leatherette cover with gold leaf lettering. Because of the Dred Scott Decision of 1857, we have the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments, often called the Reconstruction Amendments, the Civil Rights Amendments and sometimes called the Dred Scott Amendments.
SHARE THIS IMPORTANT DOCUMENT WITH FAMILY AND FRIENDS, NOT ONLY AS A KEEPSAKE BUT TO SHARE THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF OUR NATIONAL LEGAL DOCUMENT.
READ FOR YOURSELVES WHAT THIS LONGEST ENDURING (237 YEARS OLD) CONSTITUTION HAS TO SAY.
LIMITED TIME OFFER
Purchases made by September 30 will receive free shipping
THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!
Celebrating the Life of John Lebourgeois
In July 2024, we celebrated the life of a dear friend and family member, John LeBourgeois, the great-great-grandson of Charlotte Blow, daughter of Dred Scott’s original owners (Peter and Elizabeth Blow) who left this world on April 11, 2024. He was a member of Dred Scott Presents: Sons and Daughters of Reconciliation and a staunch and devoted supporter of the Dred Scott Heritage Foundation along with many of his family members.
John and his wife Mimi, one daughter Anne and a nephew, Ashton, met Lynne Jackson in Southampton, VA at the dedication of the Dred Scott Blow Family Highway marker installed by another Blow descendant, Jeffrey Hines. Because of Facebook, total strangers met whose lives were entwined. The other daughter, Louise, has participated in three major Dred Scott programs in Marshfield, Missouri, St. Louis, and at Calvary Cemetery.
The LeBourgeois family has been as dear to us today as their ancestors were to Dred Scott, helping him and Harriet in their eleven-year battle for freedom. Today the family is engaged in helping us promote the principals and necessities as well as the joys of reconciliation. I spoke at the memorial which was held in John’s favorite spot, Promontory Point Field House on Lakeshore Drive in Chicago, Illinois. John was a man of many disciplines and everyone who attended thought we knew him, until we heard the warm and hilarious stories about his life and career at the memorial. I found out John was an artist. The caricature portrait of John was drawn by Tom Bachtell.
John’s family graciously invited donations to be sent to the Dred Scott Heritage Foundation and The Whitney Plantation. Rest in peace dear John and thank you for representing what God’s humanity to man can look like. We will always remember and love you!
Lynne
Interview with Judy Redlich on Encounter for Black History Month.
New Marker for Harriet Scott
Harriet Robins Scott is buried at Greenwood Cemetery in St. Louis. For many years, her location was not known. Mrs. Etta Daniels had the records and a few people knew but it was not revealed publicly until 2006 when Mrs. Ruth Ann Hager, a certified genealogist was doing research on Harriet and through several attempts concluding with a phone call to Lynne Jackson, she was able to narrow down the many Harriet’s to one, our Harriet at Greenwood. This happened to occur in 2006, a year prior to the 150th anniversary of the Dred Scott Decision in 2007. As Lynne likes to say, “She wasn’t going to miss out on the party!”
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Harriet Scott Memorial Dedication Gallery
New Monument Celebrating the legacy of Dred Scott
Lynda Burgman, Grant Writer and avid supporter
On September 30, 2023 Dred Scott received a new memorial monument.
It was for the occasion of the 165th anniversary of his death which was September 17, 1858. As it turns out, that became Constitution Day!
The new monument replaces the wonderful headstone which has been there since 1957 and was donated by Mrs. Harrison of Pennsylvania, a descendant of Scott’s original owners Peter and Elizabeth Blow.
To share his legacy and impact on our nation, his great-great granddaughter, Lynne Madison Jackson and her Dred Scott Heritage Foundation, provided a new monument with the aspects of the Foundation’s goals of Commemoration, Education and Reconciliation noticeably visible. The new memorial is in Calvary Cemetery in St. Louis, MO where Scott is among the top most asked for gravesites in the cemetery of over 300,000 persons.
Treasure Shields Redmond, Lynne Madison Jackson, Dred Scott Madison II,
Peggy Lewis LeCompte, Dr. David Konig, Dr. Kimberly Norwood
Dred Scott Memorial Monument
Dedication Gallery 1
September 30, 2023
Dred Scott Memorial Monument
Dedication Gallery 2
September 30, 2023
Dred Scott Memorial Monument Dedication
The Dred Scott Heritage Foundation will dedicate a new memorial monument on Dred Scott’s gravesite, Saturday, September 30, 2023, at 11:00 a.m., at St. Louis’s Calvary Cemetery,
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