 Welcome everyone, we're just going to give people about a minute to get into the room, but we'll be starting shortly. Leslie, can you hear me? Are you waiting? I'm about to start. Okay, I was going to try to switch computers. I'm afraid to now. Back to the forum webinar series, I am Leslie Kanan, a senior field officer for the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and I'll be helping to moderate this webinar tonight. In case you don't know, Preservation Leadership Forum is the professional membership program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. This webinar series is made possible by members of Preservation Leadership Forum, and we sincerely thank those of you who are with us today. The National Trust African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund. We have been having a series of conversations to broaden our understanding of the Brown v. Board of Education case, as we work towards passing legislation that will link the various stories and places related to this case. This is actually the 67th anniversary of the landmark Brown v. Board case, and we are partnering with the Brown Foundation of Educational Equity Excellence and Research, the Shawnee County Historical Society, and the Washburn University Law School to look at landmark cases that occurred before Brown v. Board. This session will feature a discussion with the descendants from the Dred Scott v. Sanford and Plessy v. Ferguson cases. We are thrilled to have with us today, Lynn Jackson, who is the president of Dred Scott Heritage Foundation, Keith Plessy, who is the president of the Plessy and Ferguson Foundation, Phoebe Ferguson, who is the executive director of the Plessy and Ferguson Foundation, Janet Thompson Jackson, who is a professor at law of Washburn University School of Law, and Carla Pratt, who is the dean of the Washburn University of Law. Before we begin, there are a few technical logistics. We will take questions from the audience during the webinar. Please send questions via the Q&A function. You're welcome to submit at any time during the webinar, but we will be waiting until the Q&A section to answer questions. We will be dropping links related to the presentation in the chat. During the program, we will send out a recording of today's webinar directly to the email you used to register. And finally, all forum webinars are archived in our forum webinar library. Closed captioning is available and you can enable it through the live transcript button. And now I would like to turn things over to Dean Carla Pratt. Lastly, I just want to welcome all of our guests here this evening. My name is Carla Pratt and I serve as dean and professor of law at Washburn University School of Law here in Topeka, Kansas. We are delighted that you've joined us this evening. Washburn University was founded as Lincoln College after the Civil War to celebrate the end of slavery and educate all people, including the recently freed slaves. We are one of the few institutions that has never discriminated on the basis of race and educating people or on the basis of gender, and I'm very proud of that. I want to thank Cheryl Brown Henderson for her long standing partnership with Washburn University School of Law. I work with the Brown Foundation going back to 1989 and I'm really excited for this evening's program and look forward to hearing from all the speakers, but I feel really cheated that we don't get to do this in person so I hope that we'll get to host you here in Topeka one day soon. Welcome everyone and thank you so much for joining us. I'm Janet Thompson Jackson, and I am both proud and humbled to have served on the Brown Foundation Board of Directors since 2009. And on behalf of the board, I want to say just a few words about the foundation. The impetus for the Brown Foundation came out of a desire to achieve something that I think all of the speakers today have wanted to achieve, to tell the untold stories of people, some whose names are familiar and others who are not, who have shaped our history, our societal culture, and who have paved the way for the Brown v Board case. The Brown Foundation was founded in 1988 with Cheryl Brown Henderson as the founding president. Cheryl would be the first person to say that she didn't and couldn't have done it alone. Along with supporters in the Topeka community, Cheryl reached out to the multiple plaintiffs and plaintiffs families in the other cases that were consolidated in Brown v Board. Since this case of Brown v Topeka Board of Education, the other cases originated in Delaware, Virginia, South Carolina and Washington DC. The Brown Foundation represents the efforts of the NAACP in filing these cases and the sacrifices of these plaintiffs, including her father Oliver Brown. At this 67th commemoration, the foundation is honored to partner today with the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the Shawnee County Historical Society and Washburn Law School, particularly as we continue the work of advancing racial equality in this country. And while we're honoring people, I also want to acknowledge that Mrs. Leola Brown Montgomery just celebrated her 100th birthday last week. So we wish her a very happy birthday. As we reflect on the building blocks to Brown, the theme of this event, the building blocks, our first block is the Dred Scott case, Dred Scott v Sanford, and we're honored today to have Lynn Jackson here as a descendant of Dred Scott. The other case in our building block is Plessy v Ferguson, and we're honored to have with us today Keith Plessy, descendant of Homer Plessy and Phoebe Ferguson, descendant of Judge John Ferguson. So I will ask the speakers to join us on camera and Phoebe. Great. Thank you and welcome. So as I briefly mentioned, we want to focus on the stories on the human beings behind the names that we know in these cases. And as descendants, you hold those stories from a different perspective than we're used to reading about and hearing about. So we want you to share those stories with us. And, Lynn, I'm going to ask you to start as a descendant of Dred Scott. Tell us your story. Thank you so much Janet and thank you to Cheryl Brown and the Brown Foundation. I'm very proud of you Cheryl, and also the 67th anniversary is a milestone every year is a milestone so we're happy to be here and celebrate with you. Now, the impact of Dred Scott. This is his story. Let's next. Dred Scott I call him a civil rights pioneer because really a lot of things started when his case came to light and before that it was business as usual but things really changed around 1799 he was born. And those of courts, instead of resistance based on long term standing of a precedent that he had, because he felt he did have the right to sue him in court. So this is his story. Dred Scott was from Virginia, he was born on the plantation of Peter blow, and Peter blow had 11 children. After some years he decided to leave and move forward to try some new things he ended up in Alabama and Huntsville and Florence. Dred Scott actually was born almost at the same time as Nat Turner. And had he not moved to St. Louis he might have been caught up in the Turner rebellion but rather than that a year before he ended up in St. Louis, Missouri. By that time the blow family was having more problems with business and so forth the parents got ill, and eventually, the father sold Dred Scott to a Dr. Emerson who was an army surgeon, and he did this is one of his last things before he passed on. Next. Also, having traveled with Dred Scott into free territory of Fort Armstrong which was in Illinois and Fort Snelling at Fort Snelling, an Indian agent owned Harriet Robinson his name was Lawrence Toliver. And he also was a Justice of the Peace so he married them. They had two daughters and Dred and Harriet lived as men and wife under Dr. Emerson quarters. Next. Dr. Emerson died in 1843 just a few years after getting with his family and he had married Irene Emerson. She was the daughter of a starch slave holder. And when Dr. Emerson died they asked for their freedom they said you know you know we've been in free territory. They'll pay you $300 but she turned them down and they sued for their freedom on April the 6 of 1846. Next. They sued at the old courthouse based on a law that was once free always free persons wrongfully held in servitude could sue for their freedom a lot of people didn't know that but in St. Louis we also found that there were over 300 freedom suits in the basement of our old courthouse older. And we found out that almost half of the people with grounds to sue were able to do so you had to prove that you were free you had to prove that you were physically abused. And you also needed people to come forward and to testify and on your behalf that you were of this situation. Next. Again on April the 6 of 46 the Scott suit for their freedom dread Scott suit and Harriet Scott suit. She had her own case. And if you look closely you'll see the X's that they signed for their names in the world their signatures. And in each case the X looks like a cross I think they had faith that good things were ahead. Unfortunately, it took five court proceedings and 11 years for them to find out that they were never going to be free according to the law. They sued in 47. It was a mistrial they got their freedom in 50 from 12 white men on a jury in St. Louis at the old courthouse but on March 22 of 1852 they lost to the Missouri Supreme Court. And Roswell field felt that a federal court might be the answer. He found the diversity clause and this is one of the pivotal things and do it's got case. Had he not come forward and had he not known that to sue someone who lived in another state allowed to bring your case up a level. Then do it's got we may never have heard of him. But on March the 6 of 1857 after all of that the infamous dread Scott decision was rendered. Justice Roger be tawny said, among other things that they had no rights that the white man was bound respect and etc etc meaning that they also were told that they were not citizens. Tawny was the Chief Justice over court that had nine justices and each one of them wrote a separate opinion because they all had different reasons, and that decision was seven to two. Next. And here are some things about the case reasons for the case where that the Missouri Compromise meant that it was meant to subdue divisions in other words they were fighting over who would become a slave state. And so the Missouri Supreme Court in 1820 came to pass the Missouri Supreme Court went against presidents when they told him he cannot have his freedom. That was totally unexpected. The increased division of the North and the South and the Kansas Nebraska Act were just fuel on the flame. Southerners were determined to keep their economic system and dread Scott, however pursued his case to the Supreme Court again had he not done that. We may not even have had the war, but the impacts on the case where that the Scott family did lose but not only them all African Americans lost and even those who were free were considered no longer citizens. The Missouri Compromise was declared unconstitutional and whereas they had tried to push it aside before they now declared that Congress didn't even have a right to ever implement it. The doctrine of popular sovereignty, which was allowing both states of one to come in free one to come in slave and alternate that was also thrown out. The North was outraged the abolitionists were emboldened and increased tensions came about to where we actually were a major catalyst for the Civil War. Next, well the Scott family actually was regime because even though the law said that they would never be free. They had been owned by Mrs. Emerson who had to, and I have to abbreviate this I'm sorry it's a great story but she sold them back to one of the children of the original owners Taylor blow the gentleman in the color picture, paid for $2,000 premium bonds. He and his sister Charlotte and his brother Henry had helped them throughout the 11 year ordeal. This case was such an impact that the Frank Leslie illustrated which we would compare to time magazine today. They were on the front page and a long and lengthy article was written about them because they were the most famous slaves in the United States, and their case was positioned to change the nation. Next. So, one of the results, a big result of the dress got decision where the three amendments the 13th 14th and 15. I think we should all know 13th a blush slavery 14th gave citizenship to African Americans and then made it very clear that if you were born here or naturalized you should be a citizen. However, the 14th amendment was also that which essentially overturned the dress got decision. So that was very critical and as we all hear today 14th amendment is always in the news. The 15th amendment gave African men the right to vote. And so these again are often called the dread Scott amendments as well. Next. We did have the opportunity to meet this beautiful lady Sylvia Mendez at the dress got symposium which was held in 2007 at Harvard. Dr. Charles over to junior had the most incredible symposium I have ever been to, and Miss Sylvia was there as the child. And I would say the plaintiff for the Mendez versus I believe California. It was a precursor to Brown and the segregation case was in California against Latin American children. They did win their case. And yet, it was a wonderful precedent for a Brown, the Board of Education. Charles Hamilton Houston was extremely pivotal in this and if you ever get to see the movie separate but equal. Cindy Porta you'll see his impact there, his son and grandson were there. And, and it was just a delight to meet her and I had not known about her case before. So as much as some of us think we know everything we don't and it was just wonderful and now I see I'm working with the Plessey Ferguson and Brown people, as well as tauney's and all of this history is coming together in a beautiful way so I'm very pleased to be able to present to you a very thumbnail sketch of the background of dread Scott but it was the president of those things that led up to Brown. Thank you. Thank you for that one. And we're going to move next to Keith Plessey. Keith, will you share your story with us please. Yes. And good afternoon to everybody good evening to everyone. I would like to share the fact that the 14th amendment was one of the major tools used by the Citizens Committee, who represented home of Plessey in court. In his case, when he, his case was lost, the Civil War erupted as a result of it. I don't have any slides to show you right now but my backdrop is our banner for the Plessey and Ferguson Foundation. And I would like to say that home of Plessey was born he was the plaintiff in the Plessey v Ferguson case. He was born in New Orleans. March 17, 1863. That was the year that Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. He grew up in a time where the Civil War was going on when he was an infant, and in his young, a young life, he lived through what we called reconstruction. It never meant that the United States was going through after the Civil War and the South had lost the New Orleans and Louisiana area was occupied by the Union soldiers and in Homer Plessey's case he grew up in a time where he could attend schools, the same as white students. He could marry a white woman if he was chose to when he became a young man. But in his neighborhood. He was what you call it. They were free people of color. His, his neighborhood, his father matter of fact his father Plessey. And this is the fact that you know people would think name was, they were a lot of activists in the Plessey family but they were not. They were carpenters. Homer Plessey's father was a master carpenter and he died at about when Homer Plessey was about six years old, and he, he was taken in by a family of the name of Dupont. Victor Dupont was his stepfather, who married his mother was widowed at the time, and Victor Dupont was an activist. He was a former Civil War hero, and he was a role model for Homer Plessey, and had not Homer Plessey's father died untimely debt. He would have probably been a carpenter. Instead of an activist, but his his call was to his calling was to go out and try to do as many good things as he could in the community. One of the things he did. Before he volunteered to become the plaintiff in the Plessey v Ferguson case was he was an activist working with schools to keep the schools open for the black children. When the gains from reconstruction were beginning to deteriorate. And in the south. The Hays Tilden deal was made, and the troops were withdrawing from the south. And as that happened. There were there were many laws that were coming about to take away the rights that African Americans had gained from the reconstruction era. And when Homer Plessey became a young man. He, he marched out into the neighborhood to fight these different laws that were changing. He met a group of people called the Citizens Committee. These gentlemen had already when 1890 rolled around. The legislature adopted the separate car act, which mandated separate accommodations for black and white passages on trains and Homer Plessey was the second test case. I know that the famous case Plessey v Ferguson bears his name, but a gentleman by the name of Daniel daydune was the first test case. His case, embody interstate travel on those trains. So he won his case, and in Homer Plessey's case, it was interest state travel in Louisiana, and the law, the law was written for state Louisiana. And then you can go to the next slide, if you like. The laws in Louisiana stated that you had to sit in a different train car, and the East Louisiana railroad was part of the plan to, to get rid of the separate car law. He had meetings with the Citizens Committee, and they had agreed that Homer Plessey when he approached that train, he wouldn't be accosted, he would walk up to that train station purchases first class ticket, and go to his seat on East Louisiana railroad train. And he was approached by the conductor, and the arresting officer. CC came, and they asked him was he a man of color. He replied yes, and he was going to ride to Covington on that train. Well they removed him from the train. And in a way he was protected, because in those days. It was, it was so bad, the violence was so bad in those days. Just one year before Homer Plessey rolled that train which was June 7, 1892. In 1891, there were a group of Italian citizens who were arrested for the murder of the chief of police. And these guys were convicted and were in jail but when a case became, came before the courts, they beat the case, and they were acquitted. And before they were released, a mob went into the jail, pulled these gentlemen out of jail, hung them, shot them from ropes as they hung in Congo Square. And this type of climate was around when Homer Plessey was going to challenge this law in 1892 one year later. The impact of it was amazing because the, the wharf where he interrupted the train was the press street wharf, known for the cotton press, where all the cotton was processed. So when he interrupted the train on that day. It was, it was attention all around the city of New Orleans on what he did. And they also was doing, they also did it in defiance to get the attention of the party of Lincoln, which the convention was going on in Minnesota that year. And they wanted to have them raise an eyebrow for for the case. He was removed from that train and safely brought to jail, where he was, he was taken care of as far as his bail was already set, and he was released from the jail. I don't know if this document is any of the arrest records but you can go to the next slide. His case was local when he was arrested, and it moved to the state Supreme Court. His case was called the state of Louisiana versus Homer Plessy before it was appealed to the US Supreme Court as Plessy v Ferguson. What the case, when it was heard in US Supreme Court. The decision was to adopt separate but equal as the law of the land here in America. It was legal apartheid sanctioned by the highest court in America, which was sad. But as a result, there was so many activists and leaders around that time who never gave up the fight. And people like Charles Hamilton Houston who Lynn mentioned earlier was young man at the time, and he was inspired by the case. And as Thurgood Marshall became one of his students. He was inspired by the case as well as Charles Hamilton Houston took him under his wing, and they pursued to destroy separate but equal, and throughout the 20th century. They didn't thread that connects Dred Scott's case, the 14th Amendment was argued in Plessy's case, and in many cases that Thurgood Marshall and Charles Hamilton Houston presented to the courts. They referred to the separate but equal law as Jim Crow deluxe many times in cases. To present the 14th Amendment first and if it didn't work, they would pull out Jim Crow deluxe which is separate but equal, which demanded that if you had separate facilities, they had to be equal. So therefore, if this facility wasn't equal, you had to allow the person, the African American person to attend school, or to be treated equal in that environment. They won many cases on the back of Plessy v Ferguson, all the way to the crowning jewel of Brown v Board, as we celebrate the 67th anniversary of Brown v Board. The 14th Amendment was used in that case as well. In many cases, you know people look at Plessy v Ferguson as being exonerated from that case, but it was education in Brown v Board and as far as transportation. It wasn't until the 60s. Brown was decided in 1954 on this day. And in transportation, it wasn't until the Civil Rights Act was signed that we really started to see change in transportation. So America in many ways has been very stubborn in abiding the law. But the law is going to prevail eventually. Thank you. Thank you, Keith. And now we bring Phoebe Ferguson to the camera please to share with us your story Phoebe. It's not letting me start the video. The host. Okay. There we are. Well, it's so great to be here with all of you and our good friends, our partners in history, we like to call them Cheryl and Lynn, and I will give you a little bit of background on judge Ferguson, because I think maybe that's the least known history in the evolution of the case. And yet, his name is attached to it. And so he is known by name only I'll put it that way. So contrary to what people might assume. And Howard Ferguson was not himself. He was from Martha's Vineyard, and many many generations of whalers in his family. And, but he grew up while he was in school he was very interested in, you know, educating himself and eventually just became a teacher in Martha's Vineyard and then he decided to study law. So he wasn't far from Boston. So it made sense for him to travel Boston, and to begin to study law and in those days, you didn't necessarily have to be in university to attain your degree, you could study underneath. And a very experienced lawyer. And which is what he did. And he studied under a lawyer in Boston his name was Khaled. And he himself had an interesting background part of which was that I will say at times he was very much against slavery and fought on behalf of people seeking their rights not necessarily slaves but he was an abolitionist. I will say that that later changed so if you're looking up this history about how it is confusing. But in the 18 late 1850s and early 1860s. This is where he was, and we don't have any direct documents or personal diaries or anything like that from Jefferson, but we know that he traveled to Louisiana after the Union soldiers started coming back to the East Coast and, you know, as the myth goes saying how much opportunity there was in the south. And he immediately in 1865 traveled to New Orleans. You know, I look at the details of thinking to myself well, that's interesting he made a decision not to join the Union Army. While he was in Boston, during those years he everybody else was pretty much joining up. Why didn't he but anyway he came down to New Orleans and within a year he marries TJ Earhart's daughter Virginia TJ Earhart is a very outspoken abolitionists in New Orleans, maybe the most outspoken abolitionists, but Ferguson's agenda was to start a shield and started, you know, be a lawyer, which he did. But he very quickly realized that New Orleans was very different than Boston. We had a completely different set of rules down here, which is that prostitution was okay. The gambling was prolific. And he really felt that this was abhorrent and he was going to make it his mission to get rid of gambling and prostitution in New Orleans. So he followed that trail for a while but he also got very much involved with Louisiana politicians who were anti lottery, hence anti gambling and got on their coattails for a very long time and it's just really hard to say what he was thinking during the years of, let's say, 1868 and 1890. He was appointed to the district court in 1892 July of 1892 after Humboldt, plus he was arrested. And the people that put him on the court were Governor Nichols and Murphy Foster. And Governor Nichols had, he was governor but then Murphy Foster became governor right at the right at this crux in 1891 92. And Murphy Foster appoints Governor Nichols as Chief Justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court. And then they put Ferguson in the seat of a judge in the civil district court who mysteriously disappeared. The case comes before Judge Ferguson, the Daniel de Dune case that Keith told you about comes before him in July, and he throws it out because the law stated that it was illegal to ride in a train car that was traveling within the state if he were black to travel with whites, but if the train were going outside of the state of Louisiana, then that was allowable. And they tested that case first to see what the legislators would do, knowing that that would be illegal. And so it came before Judge Ferguson and he said, you know, this is not the law and he threw it out. And then the Citizens Committee went back to the drawing board, you know, and figure out that they needed Homer Plessy, somebody else to challenge the law within the state. And when that case came before him, he, it was very interesting, his demeanor, I guess, he was very amicable to the Plessy and his team, his Plessy's local lawyer was a former Confederate soldier himself, but now friends with Judge Ferguson. So they argued, you know, they brought the case before him on the basis of the 14th amendment. But the way the judge ruled was that he violated the separate car law. He, and he quote, was doing as he pleased by not leaving the car, and therefore he had broken the law, and he ruled against him. So he left, however, according to recent research, the view is that he by not deciding the case based on the arguments brought to him, in the amendment that they could then appeal the case, which they did directly to the State Supreme Court. And in three days, they upheld Ferguson's decision. No surprise there. And so then the case, they were allowed to appeal it to the Supreme Court. And when they appealed it to the Supreme Court, Judge Ferguson's name was on the petition. And therefore it became Plessy versus Ferguson instead of State of Louisiana. So basically then it gets. This gets tried and springboard four years later in 1996, and again, the, the lawyers for Homer Plessy argued the case on, you know, from three or four different angles. When they felt like they were not making progress. So it was, you know, certainly the 1340 amendment. It was, you know, how it was, how do you, how do you determine what race someone is when they're got one drop of black blood and who's to say, who determines that is it the conductor is the judge is it, you know, so but ultimately, they work their way around all of it. And the, you know, that was a seven to one decision one judge was not there against Plessy by basically saying that the 14th amendment was never meant to be granted in a legal case. I mean it was only meant to be granted in sort of business and legal arenas but not in social life. So the court was saying they couldn't be the arbiters of what states have what states did with their, with their laws, how they decided whether whether or not people could ride together on the car or in a public accommodation of any sort. So they just passed the book and as they have done many times since basically interpreted the 14th amendment with their own opinion of it. And and that's how it we've seen this many times before. So the path to the promise of the 14th amendment goes on. And that's where we are today. Okay. Thank you, Phoebe. And, you know, we knew that this was going to go quickly but we do have time for some questions. And we have some Q&As that are, there is a Q&A box located at the bottom of your screen. And we do have some questions that have come up. And I'm going to, I actually would ask for the three panelists, three speakers to appear on the screen. And we're going to throw out a few questions in the time that we, in the time that we have and people can continue to write questions in the Q&A box as well. The question that I think a lot of people are wondering is, and you've given us such good information, I should start there, thanks to all of you, because I think that it's always so interesting to hear information beyond what we're reading in the case, and the understanding of the people behind the stories. And so you've been able to give us that. And there are lots of things that we could dig into. One question that I think a lot of people are wondering though is, how did you discover that you were connected with these people in history. I wish if you just say a little bit about how you made that discovery and how that kind of informed the work that you're doing now. Okay, I'll start. I found out that somebody very important was in our family when I was about four years old, because there was this big event at our old courthouse and my dad played Dred Scott. When I grew older, I found out that one of the nice surprises is that my father and one of his sisters were actually babysat by Dred Scott's daughter. So the link to the family never broke and it was consistent throughout our family line and we just always knew and the people in our neighborhood always knew and so, yeah. Thank you. And Keith, how about you? Yeah. My screen is frozen. I don't know why but anyway, we can see you and hear you. Okay, you can see me. All right. Well, in elementary school. And I'm trying to think. Leslie told me her mother attended the same school I did an elementary school in New Orleans. At Valencia Jones School, one of the schools that we have as we formed the foundation, we mark spots around the city. And Jones School is one of those places where we placed an historic marker, historical marker, how they say it. But anyway, at the school. I was not very interested in history at all. And I was, I was an artist, young artist, and like to draw everything I saw. And when teachers were talking about plastic if you focus in case I would draw some pictures and not listen. But eventually one of my teachers pulled me to the side and said, look, your name is spelled just like home a pleasant. And when we were talking about the case they stood me up in front of class that was Miss Waters. She said hey, your names just spelled just like home a blessing. And we're going to get the phone book and look in there and see how many places in New Orleans, and my mother's name appeared and a couple other relatives appear, but it was only a few. I thought it was very nice of her to point that out to me, but it took a long time before I actually realized how I was related to homework lesson. And it took place in 1996 on the 100th anniversary of the Plessy v Ferguson case here in New Orleans. There was a conference and a guy by the name of Keith Weldon Medley, an author who wrote a book called we as free man was doing his research and he was part of this big conference. Well he kind of took me under his wing and showed me a lot of genealogy research that had been done. And he showed me how I was related to home a plus through my great grandfather, and their fathers were home a plus his father and my great grandfather's father were brothers. Okay, and you know he home a plus he by the way has no children in history. Some people might say, either the great great granddaughter or the great great grandson. He does not have he did not have any children so there were no direct descendants of homework lesson. Yeah, thank you. We'll share something with you about that same author, because he I'm going to. Yeah, I'm going to ask you about about our connection to judge Ferguson. Well, I didn't know anything. I mean I didn't know specifically definitively until I was 40, and I got a phone call from someone who bought his house here. And they wanted to restore it to exactly what it was. And it's 19th century version. And so they basically said, you know, I bought your great great grandfather's house, the judge, you know, in Pleasant versus Ferguson. And I just happened to get a family genealogy and I literally was looking at it on the phone with it with this guy and saying, Oh, right, I knew that because there it was judge john Howard. So that was how I found out was through a phone call. Okay. So, and this goes to a couple of people's questions and also a question that I have, you know, we are in a time now where it is very difficult for people with differing viewpoints to be able to come together and have any kind of productive conversation. And sometimes there's so much conflict there can't be any any reasonable discourse at all. How is it that Phoebe you and Keith were able to come together to start this foundation. What was the impetus for that. What was the impetus for that let me let me just let you tell the story. Well, I mean, when we first met. That was, I guess the genesis of it like our first meeting which was a surprise meeting that was kind of set up by the author of we is Freeman. And so when we were introduced to each other. Keith came up and he said hi I'm Keith Plessie. I said, Hi, I'm Phoebe Ferguson. It was like, Oh my God, I felt like I had to apologize for pretty much the last 200 years. And so he just laughed and said, you know, it's, it's no longer Plessie versus Ferguson, it's Plessie and Ferguson. And he just said it right there, and then invited me to lunch and we just hit it off. We became friends. And we've been friends ever since I mean I was going back and forth to New York but eventually I moved back in oh six, and it was really I think, seeing people's response to us together. It was really profound in that the symbolism of harboring that much. Hey, you know, just with these two names, of course what they represented but here we are in the 21st century, and people are saying I can't believe you all friends. But then there was the other reaction which is that it's amazing you all are friends and that means so much. And people really feel moved by our friendship right Keith. Yeah, I think the common term was everybody that would be kind of surprised when we mentioned that we were friends. It would say, Oh, that gives me goosebumps. Really. But it was, it was some of our friends who around us like an archivist named pastor Brenda square Brenda bill of square, who was the archivist at Amistad Research Center for some 14 years. And she really talked to both of us about the significance of our meeting and be just being friends, we were satisfied with that but they wanted to encourage us more to form some type of foundation to do some work around reconciliation. And I would say Lynn has been a big help in that area, because Lynn experienced a, I would say a arranged reconciliation with the Tony family. And Phoebe and I had what you call a natural reconciliation, because we just automatically the apology came out, the acceptance of the apology to forgiveness, the whole thing happened in one instance. But with, with the lead link and tell you I think she may have an opportunity to talk I don't know we're going to have enough time, but it was it was quite an experience and she actually called me when it was happening. I couldn't believe that it wasn't on national news that Tony and the descendants of Scott had reconciled. What Lynn will you share that with us. Well, certainly, it was, I don't know Keith about how it was arranged I think it was, well maybe it was arranged by somebody upstairs, but honestly, I got a phone call. Take that back. It was an email. I got an email from a young lady who said her name was Kate Tawny Billingsley, and that she had written a play about descendants of Tawny and Scott meeting over coffee to meet for the first time and talk about their historic ancestors. The play that she wrote was in New York and it was at the actor studio she invited me to the premiere and her father, and she picked me up the airport. We watched the play, which is really amazing because the characters are very, very real they're also very 21st century. The dialogue there was really that thing that broke the ISIS was a beautiful 31 year old white girl that put words into a descendant of dread Scott, and everybody was just forward because they didn't tell anybody who wrote the play until after they had seen it. It was not unlike with Keith though. These people are very genuine. They love. They love each other very much and they really love the relationship that we have they also own the story and that's what I like to tell people they don't deny, they don't make excuses they don't say oh well he wasn't so bad. You know, her play is called a man of his time, and it delves into why people did what they did back there so they try to discuss that in the dialogue. And so we have been working as Scott and Tawny and Tawny not as a foundation but Scott and Tawny. And I can't even tell you how many programs we've had but they, as well as Phoebe Cheryl and Keith are all part of dread Scott presents sons and daughters of reconciliation. And that's what it's really all about you know we are not our ancestors who were in 1718 hundreds. We are here today trying to make a difference. So to that end, the work that I've done and that our foundation has done is reach the ear of the daughters of the American Revolution and I now have three medals from them, the Medal of Honor the History and Women in History. And so, we're very encouraged and I think this is what keeps us fueled is that we're seeing responses to the work of sharing our histories, and then people get to share them back. But the play was that thing that brought us together and I always tell people I thought it would take years for me to meet them and kind of talk them into come on we can figure this out. And they found me. So, it's always it's beyond us I think it's a little beyond us. And that those stories make me very hopeful in this time again when we are so challenged to have any constructive dialogue when so many people are challenged to have constructive dialogue around issues of race and and different viewpoints it is hopeful, listening to the three of you. There are a lot of great questions in the in the in the chat. Leslie I don't know if we have time for another one before we need to wrap up. Let's take one more. Let's take one more. All of you mentioned I think I know Keith and Phoebe you talked a lot about the 14th amendment. And there's a question here the path to the 14th amendment's promise continues Keith you said, or, or maybe Phoebe said that to all the panelists, where are we on that path today and how can we move move forward toward fulfilling that promise. Well I'll just jump in real quick and because I know we're running out of time but I've had the privilege of being in three documentaries, at least, that talk about the 14th amendment, and they share and express 14 the movie talks about Kim Wong Ark, and a Latino young lady Vanessa, telling how America has viewed citizenship throughout the decades. The other one is amend which is on Netflix now we did a sharp blurb in there because they found out about Scott and Tony. And the other is a more or less perfect union, which talks about the Constitution, and obviously the 14th amendment is just you know throughout all of it. And I think where we are today is that we're willing to look at it we're willing to talk and write about it, and we're willing to examine it and until we come to an understanding that the Constitution is for everybody. And if we really want to go back to the founding fathers and take them at their word, then we really shouldn't have a lot of dialogue about what the 14th amendment means. It's not happening and so we continue to express it and however, we're given the platform and however we're given the opportunity, because every day brings a new challenge about it. And yet it is what it is, it is citizenship, and it should be left to that. We should be trying to redefine it. Yeah, baby, can you add to that. Sure. I think it is it what what is so important about I'll answer someone else's question. I'll try to in this about these three learning these three cases is is that you in the process you really learn about the, the framework of the Constitution, what it's meaning it on the face of it is how it can then be applied or not applied. And to whose benefit, and then what is important is to look at, sorry, is to look at the role of activism in all three cases. Certainly, the strategies that were used and all three cases and apply those to the strategies used today in both taking civil rights cases to court and arguing are continuing to argue them unfortunate amendment. And also even in the way in which we protest. There's also a lot to be learned if you read deeply into these cases and how they, the architecture of them, but also the spirit, the spirit of the activists is just never dies. And I think, what is it at the end of the, at the end of the case. The Citizens Committee says, what's the quote Keith says it. Although we, although we lost the case. What is it. They have ended in defeat, but not an egg nominee. We have three men declare that we were right. And our cause is sacred. Right. Right. And it would have been very interesting to be able to get into to Harlan's descent as well and we haven't had a chance to do that and there, there's that is really rich as well we're running out of time. And we are going to have to to wrap up unfortunately I know we can continue this conversation for for a long time. Leslie is going to wrap up for us before we do that first thanks to all three of you so much for sharing your stories with us and just giving us another lens, another perspective, through which to to view these cases and these people. So thank you so much for that. And, you know, we all have a story. And as we wrap up, I really invite everyone who is listening to explore in your communities and your families, your own legacy of racism, your own legacy of where, where do you fit and where does your community fit with this as a part of facing this continuing legacy in our country. Remembering, asking about stories, sharing stories, I believe there's healing in that. So with that Leslie, I'm going to turn it back over to you. And I just want to say thank you to all the panelists I think we could easily be here for another hour, talking about all of your amazing stories. And we are keeping track of the questions that were asked that weren't answered. And so we are going to try to get some of those answered perhaps through our forum connect or or some way that way. I just want to encourage you guys to keep the discussion going on form connect, which is our online community for people in the business of saving places. We have active conversations like these happening all week, and topics from section 106 to women's history at historic sites, if you haven't joined. You should. It's a great place. It's free. You just need to make an account. If you missed any of our previous webinars on brown B board or other topics, you can access those recordings in the webinar archive information about our upcoming program is also available. And I just want to thank you all again who attended today's webinar special thank you to our speakers for sharing their stories with us. If you have any questions following this webinar, please don't hesitate to contact us. Our email is format saving places.org. And again, thank you so much for all your amazing questions and for your attendance and thank you again to the panelists for all your amazing stories. I feel like we need to talk again so I'll I'll I'll email you guys after this and see what we can do. Thank you so much.