Black History Month Day 8: When the Law Protects Power, Not People

Julie Bolejack

08 Feb 2026 — 1 min read

Photo by Tingey Injury Law Firm / Unsplash

Black History Fact:
The 1857 Dred Scott decision ruled that Black Americans could not be citizens and had “no rights which the white man was bound to respect.”

Let’s be clear about something uncomfortable: the Supreme Court has not always been a guardian of justice.

Black history reminds us that the law has often been used to formalize cruelty, not prevent it. The Dred Scott decision didn’t just deny citizenship—it codified dehumanization. It declared, in legal language, that Black people existed outside the moral concern of the nation.

That ruling wasn’t a mistake. It was a reflection of whose humanity counted.

We tend to romanticize the Constitution and the courts as inherently fair, forgetting that interpretation is shaped by power, politics, and prejudice. Rights are not self-executing. They are enforced—or ignored—by people with agendas.

This matters today because we are still taught to trust systems without questioning whose interests they serve.

When laws protect property over people, order over justice, and authority over accountability, history tells us to be skeptical—not reverent.

Black history does not ask us to abandon the law. It asks us to stop worshiping it blindly.

Justice has never come from institutions alone. It comes when people demand more than the law is willing to offer.

Thanks to my readers, I appreciate this brief moment with you on Superbowl, Olympic and Bad Bunny Sunday. Enjoy your day, lots of choices.

Julie Bolejack, MBA

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