File:Dred & Harriet Scott (art) (32126223520).jpg

The statues of Dred and Harriet Scott stand next to the Old Courthouse, looking over a crowd of Women's March protesters through the Arch and over the Mississippi River.

Dred and Harriet Scott were enslaved African Americans who filed suit for their freedom at this courthouse in 1846. Their case reached the U.S. Supreme Court and was decided in 1857. The court ruled 7-2 that the Scotts were NOT citizens and Congress had no right to regulate slavery. The intense and immediate public opposition to this decision accelerated a chain of events that led to the Civil War and, eventually, resulted in Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and the post-Civil War Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments.

The lesson of this story is especially relevant today. Civil rights are often denied (or, having been granted, removed) by government. We can't rely on courts to always preserve those rights (inalienable though they may be). However, public opposition and activism, if sustained over the long term, can eventually overturn those decisions and create a more equitable and prosperous country for all.