The University of Harvard will give up 175-year-old photographs considered to be the first takeover of people who are enslaved in a southern Carolina museum dedicated to African-American history as part of a colony with one of the descendants of the subjects.
The photos of the subjects identified by Tamara Lanier as her back-back-in-the-art-Grand-Père Renty, whom she calls “Papa Renty”, and her daughter Delia will be transferred from the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology to the International African American Museum of South Carolina, the state where they were reduced in 1850 when the photos were taken, a lawyer Lanier.
The regulations mark the end of a 15 -year battle between Ms. Lanier and the estimated university to publish the “Daguerreotypes” of the 19th century, a precursor of modern photographs. Ms. Lanier's lawyer Joshua Koskoff, told the Associated Press that the resolution was an “unprecedented” victory for the descendants of slaves to the United States and welcomed the determination of her client's years in the pursuit of justice for his ancestors.
“I think that is one of the American history, due to the combination of improbable characteristics: having a case that dates back 175 years, to gain control of images dating back so long from enslaved people – this has never happened before,” said Koskoff.
In a statement, Harvard said that he had long been looking forward to placing the Daguerrereotypes of Zealy with another museum or other public institution to put them in the appropriate context and increase access to all Americans “.
“These regulations now allow us to move forward towards this objective,” said the university. “Although we are grateful to Ms. Lanier to have triggered important conversations on these images, it was a complex situation, especially since Harvard did not confirm that Ms. Lanier was linked to the individuals of the Daguerreotypes.”
A complex story
Ms. Lanier, who lives in Connecticut, continued the Ivy League school in 2019 for “unjustified crisis, possession and expropriation” of the images of Renty, Delia and five other people enslaved. The costume attacked Harvard for his “exploitation” of the Image of Renty at a conference in 2017 and in other uses. He said Harvard capitalized on the photos by demanding “heavy” license costs to reproduce the images.
The Daguerreotypes were commanded by Harvard's biologist, Louis Agassiz, whose theories on racial difference were used to support slavery in the United States, the trial says that Agassiz fell on Renty and Delia during the tour of plantations in search of racially “pure” slaves born in Africa.
To create the images, Renty and Delia were laid shirtless and photographed from several angles.
“In Agassiz, Renty and Delia were nothing more than research specimens,” said the costume. “The violence of obliging them to participate in a degrading exercise designed to prove that their own subhuman status would not have come to mind, and even less important.”
In 2022, the Supreme Court of Massachusetts ruled in favor of Ms. Lanier and reaffirmed the merits of the prosecution of Mrs. Lanier against Harvard after a judge of the lower court judged that she had not claimed the images.
The highest jurisdiction of the state has recognized “the complicity of Harvard in horrible actions surrounding the creation of the Daguerreotypes”, saying that “Harvard's current obligations cannot divorce its past abuses”.
A new house for rent and Delia
Tonya Mr. Matthews, CEO of the African-American international museum, described the abandonment of Harvard images for a moment “175 years in preparation”.
“The bravery, tenacity and grace shown by Ms. Lanier throughout the long and difficult process to return these critical parts of Renty and the history of Delia in South Carolina is a model for all of us,” she said in a statement.
The Southern Carolina Museum has committed to work with Ms. Lanier and to include it in decisions about how the history of images will be told.
“It is not just an improvement to move them from a cupboard in a powerful institution to another. And therefore really, the real importance is to allow these images to breathe, to allow history – the whole story – to be told not by a conflictual player in history, which Harvard was from the start,” said Koskoff.
The lawyer said: “Everyone has the right to tell the story of their own family”.
“This is the least, the most fundamental law we could have,” he said. “To be able to tell the story of his family with a museum that will allow him to tell it – I mean, you can't do better than that.”
In Ms. Lanier's trial, she asked Harvard to recognize her complicity in slavery, to listen to the oral family history of Ms. Lanier and to pay an undecreen sum in damages. An uncompromising financial settlement was part of the resolution with Harvard announced on Wednesday, but Harvard has still not publicly recognized Ms. Lanier's link with them or his link with the perpetuation of slavery in the United States, said Koskoff.
“It is only unanswered by Harvard,” he said.
He said that Ms. Lanier does not wait or expects to hear the institution, but that the regulations speak for himself.
“In the end, the truth will find you-you can only hide it for so long,” he said. “Yes, the story is written by the winners. But over time, you know, these winners sometimes look like losers.”
This story was reported by the Associated Press.
