Tamara Lanier has reached a historic settlement with Harvard University, ending a years-long legal battle over the possession of rare 19th-century photographs of enslaved individuals—including her great-great-great-grandfather, Renty, and his daughter, Delia.
On Wednesday, Lanier’s attorney, Joshua Koskoff, announced that Harvard has agreed to transfer the 175-year-old daguerreotypes—the earliest known images of enslaved people in the U.S.—to the International African American Museum in Charleston, South Carolina, where Renty and Delia were once enslaved, The Associated Press reported. The photos, which were originally taken in 1850, had been held by Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology for years.
Lanier, a Connecticut resident, first filed suit in 2019, accusing Harvard of the “wrongful seizure, possession, and expropriation” of the images. She objected to the university’s use of Renty’s photo in promotional materials, including a 2017 academic conference, and claimed Harvard profited from the images by charging high licensing fees…