Harvard University agrees to transfer ownership of slavery photographs

Summary

A pair of daguerreotypes from the transatlantic slave trade, depicting an African man and his daughter Renty and Delia, have sparked global conversations about racial inequality and the exploitation of history. For 175 years, Harvard University held these degrading images without acknowledging their origins or ties to slavery. Now, after a legal battle stretching for decades, Harvard has agreed to transfer them to an African American museum, ending its dispute and shedding light on its past complicity in slave-related imagery while highlighting its current political tensions with President Trump over civil rights issues.

Additional Summaries

On Wednesday, that dispute came to a close, when the institution that held the 175-year-old photographs — Harvard University — agreed to a settlement that would end its ownership of the images. AdvertisementLanier’s lawsuit accused Harvard of reaping profits from the photographs, through licensing feeds and reprints on the covers of books and conferences. AdvertisementFor the portrait-style daguerreotypes, Renty, Delia and other forcibly enslaved people were stripped down to their waists. When she tried to share her family history with Harvard, Lanier alleges she was repeatedly rebuffed. Years of litigationInitially, Harvard sought to dismiss Lanier’s lawsuit, and in 2021, Middlesex County Superior Court Judge Camille Sarrouf Jr sided with the university.