In this March 20, 2019 file photo Tamara Lanier attends a news conference near the Harvard Club, in New York. Lanier, of Norwich, Conn., is suing the Harvard University for 鈥渨rongful seizure, possession and expropriation鈥� of images she says depict two of her ancestors. Descendants of a Harvard professor who commissioned a series of 1850 photos of slaves say they鈥檙e backing the lawsuit against the university. Image: AP/Frank Franklin II
A woman suing Harvard University over 19th century images of slaves she says were her ancestors received the backing Thursday of dozens of descendants of the professor who commissioned the images in his attempt to prove blacks were inferior to whites.
Forty-three of professor Louis Agassiz鈥檚 descendants, including several with degrees from Harvard, delivered a聽letter聽to the Ivy league school鈥檚 president and Board of Overseers calling on the university to return images of an enslaved African man named Renty, and his daughter, Delia, to their descendants.
Tamara Lanier, of Norwich, Connecticut, sued Harvard in March for 鈥渨rongful seizure, possession and expropriation鈥� of the images. Her suit, filed in state court, demands that Harvard turn over the photos, acknowledge her ancestry and pay unspecified damages. Harvard continues to profit from the images, the suit says.
Lanier says she is Renty鈥檚 great-great-great granddaughter.
The daguerreotypes are believed to be the earliest known photographs of slaves. They were commissioned by Agassiz in 1850 to support his belief that people of African descent were inherently inferior to whites, his descendants said.
His belief, carrying with it Harvard prestige, was used to justify slavery by those who profited from it, the family said.
鈥淔or too many years, we have ignored Agassiz鈥檚 role in promoting a pseudoscientific justification for white supremacy,鈥� the letter reads. 鈥淲e see this as a collective failure to live up to our values of anti-racism and compassion. Now is the time to name, acknowledge and redress the harm done by Louis Agassiz.鈥�
The family said their stand is particularly important now.
鈥淎t a time when racism is ascendant, from the streets of Charlottesville to the White House, we believe that both individuals and institutions need to take a stand and acknowledge our part in it, past and present,鈥� the letter says.
Lanier welcomed the support of Agassiz鈥檚 family.
鈥淲e hope that the lesson of confronting the past head on is one that that Harvard can learn from Papa Renty,鈥� she said in a statement. 鈥淪lave owners profited from his suffering 鈥� it鈥檚 time for Harvard to stop doing the same thing to our family.鈥�
Harvard 鈥渃annot comment on the subject of ongoing litigation,鈥� school spokeswoman Rachael Dane said via email.
But she added Harvard 鈥渉as and will continue to come to terms with and address its historic connection to slavery.鈥�
The daguerreotypes, because of their fragility, are kept in a special storage room at Harvard鈥檚 Peabody Museum, she said. CC
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