A doctor who sought to assist a racist principle at Harvard University agreed to settle a profoundly personal debate over who has the right to images of enslaved Africans taken in 1850. According to a 2019 lawsuit, the daguerrotypes, a prelude to contemporary photography, are thought to be the earliest known images of Black American prisoners, who were posed naked and semi-nude “without acceptance, integrity or compensation.” The Cambridge University has agreed to the photos ‘ destruction and provided plaintiff Tamara Lanier with a personal financial arrangement. According to Lanier, she is a son of Renty, a slave who was only identified by his first name, who was naked in photoshopped photos with his daughter Delia, who was naked in photoshopped photoshopped by Harvard scientist Louis Agassiz as alleged depiction of Black inadequacy. Lanier is urging the transfer of the photos to the South Carolina-based International African American Museum. Lanier accused the school of using them for commercial and marketing objectives and denounced Renty’s depiction on the cover of a$ 40 archaeology publication it published in 2017. Our problems and stress have been exploited for bourgeois gain, Lanier said,” Since Black Americans were first brought to this region in stores. 15 years ago, Lanier asserted ownership of the photos, but Harvard has long refuted the state that she is Renty’s great-great-great-great-granddaughter. According to Lanier, who relied on her mother’s dental history to establish the link in genealogy, “family history and well-documented history are a pleasure that some Black Americans do not have.” In a speech on the negotiation, Harvard claimed they have “long been excited” to care for” the daguerrotypes in a responsible way.” Agassiz, a Swiss-born scientist, was a well-known scientist who worked in geology at the time. However, Lanier’s lawyer, Ben Crump, claimed that Agassiz also supported polygenism, which was “used to support both the ongoing subjugation of Black individuals prior to the Civil War and their separation afterwards.” According to Lanier,” Harvard played a part in the saddest chapter in American history.” ” This is a small step in the right direction toward fully recognizing that history and working to correct it” The controversy surrounding Agassiz’s work has also been present abroad. In 2002, he was cited for his scientific racism by people of the neighborhood where his elementary school was named after him close to Harvard.
