Daily Universe

Dred Scott’s descendant attends honorary dinner in Salt Lake City

universe.byu.edu/2024/03/06/lynne-jackson-descendent-of-dred-scott-attends-honorary-dinner-in-salt-lake-city/by Ethan Pack

March 6, 2024

Lynne Jackson speaks at This is the Place Heritage Park. Jackson has been involved in racial reconciliation efforts previously and was instrumental in getting the first-ever Dred Scott statue erected in St. Louis, Missouri. (Ethan Pack)

Lynne Jackson, Dred Scott’s great-great-granddaughter and president of the Dred Scott Heritage Foundation, joined Brigham Young’s descendants for a dinner in her honor on March 1 at This is the Place Heritage Park in Salt Lake City.

The event was hosted by the Brigham Young Racial Reconciliation Ministry, a group committed to fostering truth, healing and reconciliation within and outside of their faith community, according to their website. The dinner was meant to honor Jackson and her efforts to honor Dred Scott, as well as to advance reconciliation efforts in Utah.

The event began with a tour of the park’s monument honoring Black pioneers, such as Jane Elizabeth Manning, Green Flake, Hark Wales and Oscar Smith. The tour was led by Mauli Bonner, a musician and filmmaker who wrote and produced the film “Green Flake.” Bonner served as the monument’s lead coordinator when it was installed in 2022.

“These men and women represent the strength of Black people in the valley and even though their stories have been whispers for so many years, I think this is going to help those stories be more common knowledge — not just to the Black community but the community at large,” Bonner said.

Jackson led efforts to erect the first-ever statue of Dred and Harriett Scott in St. Louis, Missouri in 2012. Scott, an enslaved man, sued his family’s owners for their freedom in 1846. According to the Dred Scott Heritage Foundation website, his case was struck down several times, including by the Supreme Court, but he and his family were freed in 1857, a year before he died. His case would hasten the end of slavery in the United States.

“Thank you for the visit to your monument because it was outstanding and gorgeous and beautiful, and I’m so proud that you took the steps to make that happen,” Jackson said. 

Mauli Bonner speaks about the monument. It was erected in 2022 and sits across from the visitor’s center. (Ethan Pack)

Mark Shurtleff holds the book he authored, “Am I Not a Man: The Dred Scott Story.” Mark Shurtleff served as Utah Attorney General from 2001-2013. (Ethan Pack)

Robert Burch is the executive director of the Sema Hadithi African American Heritage and Culture Foundation, and a member of the Brigham Young Racial Reconciliation Ministry Council. As such, he has been a part of reconciliation efforts for several years and was excited Jackson could come and see the monument.

“It’s good to have someone who’s coming from so far away from Missouri and other places in the world who are beginning to understand that there is Black history in Utah,” he said.

At the dinner held afterward, speakers including Jackson, African-American leaders in Utah and descendants of Brigham Young spoke about the history of their reconciliation efforts and what is to come.

“We work to inspire hope and resilience in the face of historical and religious challenges that obscure truth and create divisions of distrust,” Burch said. “Myths, folklore, and one-sided narratives continue to perpetuate falsehood and hinder genuine reconciliation.”

Marian North, a descendant of Brigham Young, welcomed Jackson and spoke about her desire for reconciliation.

“I want to be clear that I don’t represent all of the descendants of Brigham Young … I do, however, represent a small handful of descendants of Brigham Young. I have no more qualification than a little bit of his DNA, but we have ears to hear, and hearts ready to love,” she said.

In her remarks, Jackson said she hopes reconciliation efforts between the Brigham Young family and African-Americans in Utah will continue. Having worked with several other families to do the same thing, she said she has seen the great results such efforts bring.

“I hope and pray that what they’re doing will encourage others of her family to at least explore what they’re trying to do and hopefully join them because wonderful things await you when you do good works for God and this reconciliation,” she said.

Anyone wanting to see the monument dedicated to honoring Black pioneers, titled Pioneers of 1847, can see it at This is the Place Heritage Park. More information about Dred Scott can be found at the Dred Scott Heritage Foundation website.

More than 40 people attended the Lynne Jackson honorary dinner on Friday, March 1. Lynne Jackson is Dred Scott’s great-great-granddaughter and president of the Dred Scott Heritage Foundation. (Ethan Pack)

Cute kids

We have some cute kids.

We were giving Ethan a hard time because he didn't have a tie on for Church. He sent us a picture to prove that he did have one on.

The sunsets are beautiful in Virginia so Courtney loves taking pictures and sending them to us. This is a sunset over her campus.

I am glad we get pictures from them.

Richmond Temple

Courtney's ward had a temple trip and Courtney went along. She had a great time. The temple is about 2 hours one way so they went early so they could eat at Kneaders and shop at Trader Joe's. They took a group picture afterward. They all look great!

Daily Universe

BYU professor engineers three-dimensional scripture study approach

universe.byu.edu/2024/02/26/from-engineering-to-religious-scholarship-professor-tyler-griffin/

By Ethan Pack                                                                                                                                                February 26, 2024

Professor Tyler Griffin teaches a Book of Mormon class in the Joseph Fielding Smith Building. Professor Griffin has been teaching at BYU since April 2010. (Chris Bunker)

One of religious studies professor Tyler Griffin’s first teaching experiences was in middle school, where he gave a history presentation that went a little longer than his teacher probably expected.

“I just dove in and studied and was so excited about it,” Griffin said. “(I) got like a fourth of the way through my presentation when the time ran out and the teacher said, ‘Hey, we’re gonna continue this. You’re gonna keep going next time.’ It filled another whole class period and I walked away from that going, ‘Wow, that was a lot of fun.’”

That was the first time Griffin thought about teaching as a career, he said. He found he enjoyed both studying and engaging with the classroom.

Griffin, now an associate dean of Religious Education at BYU, said his goal since high school was to be a seminary teacher.

Due to the high number of people wanting to be seminary teachers at the time, the Seminaries and Institutes of Religion preservice director in Logan suggested he get a degree in something that could provide for his and his family’s needs just in case, Griffin said.

“Electrical engineering was actually my plan B … in case seminary, which was plan A, didn’t work out,” he said.

Griffin, born and raised in Providence, Utah, served a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Curitiba, Brazil, according to his Religious Education Department biography. He also studied electrical engineering at Utah State University. However, he knew his end goal was to teach seminary.

“Electrical engineering is not a simple program but I loved it. My head was in that program. I loved it, but my heart was in the classroom,” he said.

The opportunity to teach in a classroom came as a choice between an electrical engineering job and a job teaching seminary. Griffin chose seminary.

Griffin first taught seminary in Brigham City and later institute in Logan, adjacent to his alma mater, Utah State University. He began teaching at BYU in April 2010, according to his biography.

Griffin leverages his training as an engineer in his approach to scripture study.

“It's actually kind of transferred over to how I engage with the scriptures. I want there to be a logical flow,” he said. “It kind of modifies how I see them, how these doctrines line up and connect, kind of in an electrical engineering circuit, if you will.”

Students find the same logical, in-depth scripture study in Griffin’s classes. As of Winter Semester 2024, Griffin teaches the courses Jesus Christ and His Everlasting Gospel, and Teachings and Doctrines of the Book of Mormon.

According to Griffin, there are three dimensions of scripture study and understanding all three is important to understanding the scriptures as a whole.

“The three dimensions are the world that lives underneath the scriptures, underneath the text; the world that created the scriptures. Then, there’s the world that lives on the scripture page. And then, there’s the words above the scripture page where you and I live. And that’s the application,” he said.

Understanding these dimensions is especially important when reading harder-to-understand chapters such as Jacob 5, the longest chapter in the Book of Mormon, Griffin said. Students in professor Griffin’s Book of Mormon class use this three-dimensional approach to better understand and apply such chapters.

While it may be difficult to understand right away, understanding comes with effort, Griffin said.

“It’s fun to roll up your scriptural sleeves and dig in, dive in, swim around in the scriptures and in the doctrines and try to make sense of them. And it’s okay if it doesn’t make perfect sense right now. It’ll come,” he said.

Students who have interacted with Griffin, both in and out of the classroom, shared the impact he has had on them. Aneisha Booth, a BYU student who previously took Griffins’s Book of Mormon class, said she appreciated his three-dimensional scripture teaching method.

“The reason the applications (of lessons) were so good is that he builds up the context and the actual words so well, and then he applied the scriptures in ways that I had never thought of before,” she said.

When Jonathan Young, a family life student, was trying to decide if a career path in religious education was for him, he said Griffin was willing to help out.

“The biggest thing that stands out is just like his willingness to take time for some student that wasn’t his and that like didn’t know him, you know, and just to help out and answer some questions for me,” Young said.

As for what he hopes his students get from his classes and their study of the scriptures, Griffin doesn’t just want them to leave having learned a few dates, facts or figures, he said. Instead, he wants them to leave having developed “enduring discipleship” to Jesus Christ.

“What I really want is not for them to sit there and try to figure out how to answer my questions,” he said. “But for them to sit there and learn how to answer their questions and how to connect with the Savior.”

Griffin hopes the principles students learn in his class stay with them for the rest of their lives, he said.

“The hope is their minds and their hearts are drawn heavenward and learning to love God learning to become more like the Savior … and to be able to resolve all the doubts, all the concerns, all the questions over time that may surface with regards to the Church or doctrine or history or social issues or political issues or any of the things that we face in our in our modern world.”

Professor Griffin hosts several podcasts, which can be found on Book of Mormon Central. He is also the author of the book “When Heaven Feels Distant.”

Dance week

Our stake was in charge of the youth stake dance. Since it was already going to be decorated, the stake presidency decided they should hold a stake adult dance the day before the youth dance. Bryan and I decided to check it out. There weren't a lot of people there but we stayed, chatted, danced a bit, and then left early. It was fun but not really our scene.

They were having a hard time, or so we were told, finding chaperones for the youth dance on Saturday so Bryan and I volunteered to help out. We got there early and were ready to check rooms and make sure youth weren't dancing too close. Haha! Not really, we were hoping they had too many volunteers so we could go home. We sat in the hallway to make sure things were going well and then, when we noticed that there were A TON of chaperones, we decided they had enough help and we left early. 

Tax return

Courtney wanted to get her taxes done quickly so she called me and we did them over Facetime. She logged in and asked me questions while she filled everything out. She didn't make a ton but she was hoping she would get most of her taxes back. When she finished and saw how much her reimbursement would be, we had a good laugh.

Cleated

Courtney was playing in a fun soccer game and she got cleated. It looks like it hurts!