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
