Urban Word of the Day - 2/20/09

The Dred Scott Decision –
The Dred Scott vs. Sanford (1857) ruling was a decision by the United States Supreme Court that ruled that people of African descent imported into the United States and held as slaves, or their descendants—whether or not they were slaves—were not legal persons and could never be citizens of the United States, and that the United States Congress had no authority to prohibit slavery in federal territories. The Court also ruled that slaves could not sue in court, and that slaves—as chattel or private property—could not be taken away from their owners without due process. The Court in the Dred Scott decision sided with border ruffians in the Bleeding Kansas dispute who were afraid a free Kansas would be a haven for runaway slaves from Missouri. The Supreme Court's decision was written by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney. The Dred Scott decision was indirectly overruled by the passage of the Thirteenth & Fourteenth Amendments of the US Constitution.


Richard Allen –
Richard Allen was a minister, educator, writer, and the founder of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) denomination in 1816 in the United States, after founding its first church (Mother Bethel AME Church) in 1794 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was elected the first bishop of the AME Church. Allen started as a Methodist preacher but wanted to establish a black congregation independent of white control. The AME church is the oldest denomination among independent African-American churches.