Ending a six-year battle that stirred moral and authorized debates concerning the possession of images taken beneath duress, Harvard College has surrendered its declare to fifteen daguerreotypes on the middle of a lawsuit introduced by Tamara Lanier, a descendant of enslaved people.
Lanier sued the college for wrongful possession and expropriation in 2019, two years after discovering that images held at Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology depicted her great-great-great grandfather Renty and his daughter, Delia, who have been enslaved on a plantation in South Carolina. Commissioned by Harvard professor Louis Agassiz and brought by Joseph T. Zealy in 1850, the daguerreotypes — an early type of pictures uncovered on copper plates — present Renty and Delia stripped to the waist. The photographs have been created as a part of so-called “experiments” in help of pseudoscientific theories of White racial superiority of which Agassiz was a proponent. (As a consequence of their dehumanizing nature, Hyperallergic has determined to not reproduce the images in query.)
Now, the photographs of Delia, Renty, and others in Harvard’s custody for practically two centuries are anticipated to be transferred to the Worldwide African American Museum in Charleston, South Carolina, in a hard-fought settlement that Lanier referred to as “a turning point in American history.”
“To quote the late Martin Luther King Jr., ‘The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,’” Lanier mentioned in a press convention this morning, Might 28. “This is a moment in history when the sons and daughters of stolen ancestors can stand with pride and rightfully proclaim a victory for reparations.”
In a 2022 interview with Hyperallergic Editor-in-Chief Hrag Vartanian, Lanier recalled how she had grown up listening to tales from her mom about “Papa Renty,” their ancestor who taught himself and different enslaved individuals to learn and write in defiance of racist legal guidelines. After her mom’s demise, Lanier confirmed her ties to Renty and Delia by way of genealogical analysis.
Lanier first requested Harvard to return the pictures in 2017, a request the college denied, questioning her ancestral claims. Her lawsuit was initially dismissed by a court docket that cited precedents establishing images as “the property of the photographer.” Lanier’s authorized crew appealed; Harvard filed a movement to dismiss, once more.
A serious breakthrough got here in 2022, when the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Courtroom dismissed Lanier’s property-related claims however dominated that she might transfer ahead with a lawsuit primarily based on “emotional distress” brought on by Harvard’s continued use of the pictures in promotional and different supplies. Then, in 2023, a Middlesex County Superior Courtroom choose paved the way in which for the case to maneuver to discovery and trial.
All through the method, Harvard’s protection crew argued towards restitution of the images to Lanier’s household and insisted that the college had a property stake within the footage. Many years earlier, Harvard had infamously threatened to sue artist Carrie Mae Weems over her appropriation of Zealy’s photos in her collection From Right here I Noticed What Occurred and I Cried (1995–96), which goals to reclaim the themes’ dignity and humanity.
Hyperallergic has contacted Harvard College and the Worldwide African American Museum for remark.
“Inclusions” (2022), an set up of carved bricks in Harvard College’s courtyard created by college students Kiana Rawji, Cecilia Zhou, and Luke Reeve (picture courtesy Tamara Lanier)
In right now’s convention, Lanier’s attorneys Ben Crump and Josh Koskoff acknowledged the significant timing of the settlement, citing Harvard’s ongoing authorized struggle with the Trump administration — which froze over $2 billion in analysis funds for the college and tried to dam worldwide college students, largely in response to Palestine solidarity protests on campus.
“It is so critically important, when we think about this epidemic of white supremacy that has resurfaced and reared its ugly head, that we know there are champions for equal justice that stand up to the enemies of equality,” Crump mentioned this morning. “There’s never a wrong time to do the right thing.”
The landmark case has drawn international consideration. In 2021, Hyperallergic launched a particular situation on Lanier’s struggle to “Free Renty,” publishing 12 scholarly endorsements of an amicus temporary in help of Lanier by creator and Brown College Professor Ariella Aïsha Azoulay.
Earlier this yr, Lanier printed a memoir titled From These Roots, which particulars her journey to tracing her household lineage and her wrestle to reclaim the images.
In right now’s convention, Lanier mentioned Harvard’s settlement to relinquish the daguerreotypes was a “victory for ethical stewardship.”
“This case affirms a powerful truth: that voices of descendants matter, that oral histories passed down through the generations of Black families carry weight and wisdom,” Lanier mentioned. “That we, the children of those who endured unspeakable cruelties, are the rightful stewards of our own family stories and sacred legacies.”
“Institutions that hold the spoils of slavery must do more than reflect — they must act,” Lanier continued. “Justice requires no less.”
