After 15-year battle, Harvard agrees in settlement to relinquish early slave photos

Harvard Relinquishes Historical Photos of Enslaved Ancestors

Harvard University will transfer photographs, believed to be the earliest of enslaved people, to the International African American Museum in South Carolina as part of a settlement with Tamara Lanier, a descendant of one of the subjects. This decision concludes a 15-year legal battle initiated by Lanier, who argued that Harvard wrongfully seized and exploited the images of her great-great-great-grandfather Renty and his daughter Delia, taken in 1850. The settlement marks a significant moment in acknowledging the university’s historical complicity in slavery and empowers Lanier to share her family’s story authentically.

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