Who was the Chief Justice behind the Supreme Court decision where Robert Cooper Grier served as a juror, which denied a "negro" could an American citizenship?
Dred Scott v. Sandford Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857) , also known simply as the Dred Scott case, was a landmark decision by the United States Supreme Court on US labor law and constitutional law. It held that "a negro, whose ancestors were imported into [the U.S.], and sold as slaves", whether enslaved or free, could not be an American citizen and therefore had no standing to sue in federal court, and that the federal government had no power to regulate slavery in the federal territories acquired after the creation of the United States. Dred Scott, an enslaved man of "the negro African race" who had been taken by his owners to free states and territories, attempted to sue for his freedom. In a 7–2 decision written by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, the court denied Scott's request. The decision was only the second time that the Supreme Court had ruled an Act of Congress to be unconstitutional.
Virginia Foster Durr Virginia Foster Durr (August 6, 1903 – February 24, 1999) was an American and a white civil rights activist and lobbyist. She was born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1903 to Dr. Sterling Foster, an Alabama Presbyterian minister, and Ann Patterson Foster. At 22 she married lawyer Clifford Durr, with whom she had 5 children, one of whom died in infancy. Durr was a close friend of Rosa Parks and Eleanor Roosevelt, and was sister-in-law (through her sister's marriage) to and a good friend of Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black who sat on many crucial civil rights cases. Her circle of friends extended to Alger Hiss. She was inducted into the Alabama Women's Hall of Fame in 2006.