Harvard University will give up ownership of historic photos of enslaved people, following a legal fight with Tamara Lanier, a descendent of one of the people who was photographed 175 years ago.
The settlement was announced by Lanier and her lawyers today.
Lanier says she is the great-great-great-granddaughter of Renty Taylor, who is pictured in the black-and-white daguerreotypes along with his daughter Delia. Taken in 1850, they’re considered the earliest-known photos of enslaved people in America.
“For the first time in the history of this country, a major American institution has offered a tangible remnant to atone for its legacy of slavery and the profound harm it has inflicted. This is more than a legal resolution, it’s a reckoning. It’s reparations,” Lanier said at a press conference in Boston, as she stood in front of the projected images.
“Institutions like Harvard must acknowledge what has long been denied: That descendants have a right to reclaim that which was wrongfully taken,” she continued.
Lanier’s lawyers said the settlement is historic.
“This result was precedent-setting in so many ways. And [a] defense of humanity for Black people all over the world, especially at this time,” attorney Ben Crump said. “It is so critically important when we think about this epidemic of white supremacy that has resurfaced and reared its ugly head.”
Lanier and her legal team hope the photos will be moved to the International African American Museum in South Carolina, where Renty and Delia were enslaved.
The daguerreotypes were discovered in 1976 in storage at Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. In recent years, Harvard has taken steps to address its historic ties to slavery.
In 2019, Lanier filed a lawsuit against Harvard, arguing that the university should not own the photos. In 2022, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled against Lanier’s ownership claims, but allowed her to sue based on emotional distress.
In a statement, Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences spokesperson James Chisholm said that Lanier’s legal claims “created a complex situation, especially because Harvard has not been able to confirm that Ms. Lanier is related to the individuals in the daguerreotypes.”
The university said it’s looking forward to assisting with the transfer of the materials.
“Harvard University has long been eager to place the Zealy Daguerreotypes with another museum or other public institution to put them in the appropriate context and increase access to them for all Americans. Now that this lawsuit has been resolved, Harvard can move forward towards that goal,” Chisholm said in a statement.
Harvard professor Louis Agassiz took the photos in the 1800s to promote white supremacist ideology that Black people were inferior. Renty and Delia were taken from a South Carolina plantation to a photography studio, forced to undress and pose for photos.
Throughout the legal proceedings, Lanier said she deeply bonded with Susanna Moore, Agassiz’s great-great-great-granddaughter. Lanier said they are almost like sisters now.
Moore said the photos’ move is an important turning point for a country reckoning with the legacy of slavery, and white people’s roles in that reckoning.
“Tamara helped us understand they were objects stolen for a deeply racist project by my ancestor. And even more radical, the images needed to be treasured,” she said at the press conference. “This victory reminds us that the meaning of such objects in museums can and should change.”
Lanier’s daughter Shonrael said that she and her family heard stories about “Papa Renty” growing up as kids. She first saw the photos when she was in her 30s.
“When I saw him, and I saw the pain in his eyes, and the anger, and the frustration, it was really emotional,” she told GBH News.
Shonrael said she admires her mother’s commitment to honoring their family’s story, after seeing the photos in the museum.
“She made a promise that day that he wouldn’t stay there. And she talks about how she wanted to take him home then. 15 years later, we’re able to do it,” she said.
