Harvard agrees to relinquish early photos of slaves after long legal battle
By Africanews with AP
Last updated: 1 hour ago
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Harvard University will relinquish 175-year-old photographs believed to be the earliest taken of enslaved people to a South Carolina museum devoted to African American history as part of a settlement with one of the subjects' descendants.
The photos of the subjects identified by Tamara Lanier as her great-great-great-grandfather Renty, whom she calls “Papa Renty," and his daughter Delia will be transferred from the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology to the International African American Museum in South Carolina, the state where they were enslaved in 1850 when the photos were taken, a lawyer for Lanier said Wednesday.
The settlement marks the end of a 15-year battle between Lanier and the esteemed university to release the 19th-century daguerreotypes, a precursor to modern-day photographs.
On Wednesday, Lanier stood holding a portrait of Papa Renty while arm-in-arm with Susanna Moore, the great-great-great-granddaughter of Harvard biologist Louis Agassiz, who commissioned the images and whose theories on racial difference were once used to support slavery in the U.S. Both women praised the resolution.
More:
https://www.africanews.com/2025/05/29/harvard-agrees-to-relinquish-early-photos-of-slaves-after-long-legal-battle/
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