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This Maryland city will remove a statue memorializing the Supreme Court justice who affirmed slavery

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A statue of the U.S. Supreme Court justice who wrote the 1857 Dred Scott decision affirming slavery will be removed from a City Hall courtyard in western Maryland this weekend.

Frederick officials announced Thursday that busts of Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney (TAW-nee) and a bust of Maryland’s first governor and slave owner Thomas Johnson will be moved Saturday. Both will go to Mount Olivet Cemetery, where Johnson is buried.

The Taney statue was erected in 1931. He practiced law in Frederick before becoming the nation’s fifth chief justice.

Lynne Jackson, a descendant of Dred Scott, right, hugs Charles Taney III, a descendant of U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney on the 160th anniversary of the Dred Scott decision in front of the Maryland State House, Monday, March 6, 2017, in Annapolis, Md. On March 6, 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Dred Scott v. Sandford, ruled 7-2 that Scott, a slave, was not an American citizen and therefore could not sue for his freedom in federal court.
Lynne Jackson, a descendant of Dred Scott, right, hugs Charles Taney III, a descendant of U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney on the 160th anniversary of the Dred Scott decision in front of the Maryland State House, Monday, March 6, 2017, in Annapolis, Md. On March 6, 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Dred Scott v. Sandford, ruled 7-2 that Scott, a slave, was not an American citizen and therefore could not sue for his freedom in federal court.

Aldermen voted in 2015 to remove the Taney statue, which some find offensive.

The Historic Preservation Commission approved moving the statues. The busts will be restored before they’re permanently placed on cemetery grounds.