One of those stories belongs to Dred Scott.

Scott is best known as the man at the center of one of the most infamous Supreme Court decisions in our nation’s history. In 1857, the court ruled that black Americans could not be citizens and possessed no rights that white Americans were bound to respect.

The decision was a moral and constitutional outrage. Yet it is not the entire story.

As Dred and Harriet Scott’s great-great-granddaughter, I have spent years researching and telling their story. What I learned is that while injustice played a central role in their experiences, so did courage, friendship, and cooperation across racial lines.

The Scott family did not stand alone. White and black Americans worked together to help them pursue freedom. Lawyers, ministers, journalists, abolitionists, and ordinary citizens joined their cause because they recognized a simple truth: Slavery was wrong, and freedom was worth defending.

That same spirit was evident in Wisconsin.

In the spring of 1852, a man named Joshua Glover escaped slavery on a Missouri farm and traveled nearly 400 miles north to Racine, Wisconsin. There, he built a new life and found work among neighbors who accepted him as a free man. But his former owner never stopped looking for him.

On March 10, 1854, a posse that included federal marshals descended on Glover’s cabin, beat him, placed him in chains, and transported him to a Milwaukee jail under the authority of the Fugitive Slave Act. He was headed back to a life of bondage. News of the arrest spread quickly.

The next day, thousands of Wisconsinites gathered outside the courthouse. They included black residents and white residents. Native-born citizens and immigrants. Farmers, laborers, business owners, ministers, and community leaders. Most of them had never met Glover. But they believed that America’s founding principles belonged to everyone and that some principles were worth defending, even at great personal risk.

Together, they broke down the courthouse door and secured Glover’s freedom.

The rescue set in motion events that would further divide the nation and lead to the formation of the Republican Party of Abraham Lincoln. It also demonstrated the power of ordinary citizens united by a common moral purpose.

What is often forgotten today is that neither Dred Scott’s story nor Joshua Glover’s story is simply a black story or a white story. They are American stories. They remind us that some of the greatest advances in our nation’s history occurred when Americans looked beyond superficial differences and focused on a shared principle.

That principle was articulated in the Declaration of Independence 250 years ago.

The founders declared that all people are endowed with unalienable rights, including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The nation they created did not immediately live up to those ideals. The contradiction between those principles and the existence of slavery was indefensible and would haunt America for generations. Yet generation after generation of Americans worked to close that gap.

Today, our public discourse emphasizes what separates us. We are encouraged to sort one another into categories, assign motives, and assume the worst.

History offers a better example.

AMERICA’S 250TH BIRTHDAY IS AN OPPORTUNITY TO RENEW OUR COMMITMENT TO CIVIC EDUCATION

Those who rallied to the causes of Glover and Scott did not all look alike, vote alike, worship alike, or come from the same backgrounds. What united them was something deeper. They shared a belief that freedom is a God-given right that belongs to everyone. On America’s 250th birthday, that conviction remains worth celebrating.

At a time when many voices profit from keeping Americans apart, the voices of those brave citizens deserve to be remembered. And perhaps, once again, followed.

Lynne M. Jackson is a direct descendant of Dred Scott and the founder of the Dred Scott Heritage Foundation. Michael Jahr is the producer of an upcoming documentary titled “Liberty at Stake: The Joshua Glover Story.”