Thurgood Marshall bust would replace one of Roger Taney in U.S. Capitol

under legislation introduced by Maryland senators.

'U.S. Sens. Benjamin L. Cardin and Chris Van Hollen have introduced legislation that would replace the U.S. Capitol bust of a controversial Supreme Court justice who wrote the majority opinion in a case concluding black people were not U.S. citizens with the first African American to serve on the high court.

The Maryland Democrats’ bill calls for replacing Roger Brooke Taney, author of the infamous Dred Scott decision, with Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. The 1857 ruling in Dred Scott v. Sandford determined that the Constitution did not include black people as citizens and that Congress could not prohibit slavery.

“As our country continues to grapple with the past and future of civil rights and systemic racism, we should highlight leaders in history that have propelled us towards justice and put an end to the glorification of those who stood in its way,” Van Hollen said in a statement Wednesday.

Marshall, a Baltimore native, was a successful attorney who argued several cases before the court, including Brown v. Board of Education, before being named to the court in 1967, where he served until 1991.

Cardin called Marshall an “inspiration, a person who propelled his rise from West Baltimore to the highest court in the country through hard work, intellectual evolution and unwavering morality.”'>>>

https://www.baltimoresun.com/politics/bs-md-pol-thurgood-marshall-roger-taney-20200604-yh2adnisj5ftfpupdq73m4qeii-story.html?