But the court ruled unanimously that Harvard was not legally obligated to return the photographs.
Free Renty
Posted inOpinion
Harvard Is Paying a Small Price for Laundering Its Past
The first and best thing the university can do to atone for its past of exploitation and profiteering is simply to renounce its present-day exploitation and profiteering.
Posted inPodcast
Tamara Lanier’s Fight for the Photographs of Her Enslaved Ancestors at Harvard
In this episode of the Hyperallergic podcast, Lanier talks about her continuing quest for justice that includes the return of the daguerreotypes depicting her enslaved ancestors.
Posted inNews
Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa: An Endorsement of an Amicus Brief for Lanier v. Harvard
“Black infants in America are now more than twice as likely to die as white infants—11.3 per 1,000 black babies, compared with 4.9 per 1,000 white babies, according to the most recent government data—a racial disparity that is actually wider than in 1850, 15 years before the end of slavery, when most black women were considered chattel.”
Posted inNews
Fred Moten: An Endorsement of an Amicus Brief for Lanier v. Harvard
What is the relation between possessing a person, possessing their image, and dispossessing their progeny
Posted inNews
Stephen Sheehi: An Endorsement of an Amicus Brief for Lanier v. Harvard
Renty and his daughter Delia. Renty was an enslaved African, kidnapped from the Congo, sold and forced into slave labor on the South Carolina plantation of B.F. Taylor
Posted inNews
Brian Wallis: An Endorsement of an Amicus Brief for Lanier v. Harvard
The ownership of images has a long and nuanced legal history, which has evolved dramatically in recent years as cultural standards and photographic technologies have rapidly advanced
Posted inNews
Laura Wexler: An Endorsement of an Amicus Brief for Lanier v. Harvard
In 1850, when Dr. Robert W. Gibbes commissioned J. T. Zealy to make daguerreotypes of persons held in slavery in and around Columbia, South Carolina, for Harvard Professor Louis Agassiz to use in support of his theory that African people were a separate species, daguerreotypes were at the height of fashion.
Posted inNews
Jane’a Johnson-Farnham: An Endorsement of an Amicus Brief for Lanier v. Harvard
As a scholar of African American history and photography whose work has focused on the status of violent images in museums and archives, I fully support the validity of Ms. Tamara Lanier’s claim and the amicus brief.
Posted inNews
Marianne Hirsch: An Endorsement of an Amicus Brief for Lanier v. Harvard
I am writing in support of the amicus curiae brief submitted by Professor Ariella Aïsha Azoulay of Brown University for the full restitution of the daguerreotypes of Renty Taylor and his daughter Delia, currently held by Harvard University, to their familial descendant, Tamara Lanier.
Posted inNews
Eunsong Kim: An Endorsement of an Amicus Brief for Lanier v. Harvard
The daguerreotypes of Renty Taylor, Delia, Drana, Alfred, Jack, George Fassena, and Jem remained in an unused storage cabinet until 1975, when it was discovered by an employee of the Peabody Museum.
Posted inNews
Carles Guerra: An Endorsement of an Amicus Brief for Lanier v. Harvard
We cannot be indifferent to the long-lasting effects of photography. The photographs at the center of Lanier v. Harvard are relentless in making Renty and Delia Taylor work and perform as slaves. The pain inflicted on them has not ceased. Photography has the capacity to propagate harm, and we have the moral obligation to interrupt its effects. Renty and Delia’s relatives perceive this indignity every day, and the sooner we take action to halt this pervasive effect the better.
