Latest news with #enslavement
The Guardian
28-06-2025
- General
- The Guardian
Amid attacks on DEI, a US nonprofit offers reparations, education and healing: ‘We're looking to fill the gap'
When Ashley Robinson and her mother took DNA tests 10 years ago and began meeting long lost cousins, they stumbled across a surprising family history that changed their lives. Robinson's lineage traced back to the 272 West Africans who were enslaved by Jesuits and sold to plantation owners in the southern US in 1838. The sale of the enslaved Africans helped fund Georgetown University, the oldest Jesuit higher education institution in the US, and served as collateral to the now defunct Citizens Bank of New Orleans, whose assets were later folded into JPMorgan Chase. Robinson dived into researching her lineage after having her first child at 21 years old, and soon enrolled in an organization called the GU272 Descendants Association, which hosts genealogical workshops and connects people whose ancestors were sold by Georgetown University. While national discussions around reparations for the descendants of enslaved Africans have largely stalled, Robinson's uncovering of her family's history met an unlikely resolution. During her senior year in undergraduate school, she received a scholarship funded by the successors of her family's enslavers. 'I remember praying after I finished the [scholarship] application,' Robinson said. As a 29-year-old mother of three, Robinson considered taking a break from school due to financial constraints. 'It was perfect timing, because the scholarship came about, and that's sailing me through the end of my degree.' The $10,000 from the nonprofit Descendants Truth & Reconciliation Foundation has helped minimize the federal student loans that Robinson needs to complete her computer science degree at University of Maryland Global Campus by the end of the year. For Robinson, the scholarship has meant that she 'will be able to finish school without taking food from the table or having to figure out what we're going to do next'. Based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, The Descendants Truth & Reconciliation Foundation is a partnership between the descendants of West Africans enslaved by Jesuits and the church's successors, aimed to address the wrongs of the past by focusing on three pillars: education, honoring elders and addressing systemic racism. The descendants partnered with the Thurgood Marshall College Fund to issue post-secondary educational scholarships for descendants of Jesuit enslavement at institutions of their choice. Since the fall of 2024, the foundation has awarded more than $170,000 in scholarships to 25 students across 20 schools, with students being eligible to renew scholarships every year. As Donald Trump's administration has targeted diversity, equity and inclusion efforts at the federal level by cancelling grant programs that benefit people of color, the foundation has successfully championed reparations in the private sector. 'We're looking to fill the gap where these institutions are somewhat hesitant or unsure how they're going to be able to support those communities,' the foundation's president and CEO, Monique Trusclair Maddox said. Bishops reckoning with their church's history of slavery in the UK are also looking to the foundation's truth and reconciliation efforts. 'Teaching this history through Jesuit institutions, allowing dialogue to come in places that wouldn't otherwise be afforded is something that hasn't been done in the past,' Trusclair Maddox said. 'We believe that that whole approach to changing how people look at racism and how people look at marginalized communities is something that will last for a long time.' The Society of Jesus, also known as the Jesuits, were slaveowners until the mid-1800s, relying on forced labor to expand their mission throughout North America. When Georgetown University faced financial difficulties, the Jesuits sold more than 272 enslaved people from five tobacco plantations in Maryland to Louisiana plantation owners to help pay off the school's debts. More than 100 of the enslaved people were sold to other owners, or remained in Maryland by escaping or by having spouses on nearby plantations. The sale that generated the current-day equivalent of $3.3m tore apart families and communities, and in turn, helped form the Georgetown University that's known today. Georgetown and the church's sordid past was largely forgotten until a descendant uncovered it while researching her genealogy in 2004. Over several years, genealogists dug up additional research on the enslaved people, as descendants formed their own groups to learn more about their ancestors. Then starting from August 2018 to the fall of 2019, about 15 representatives altogether from the Society of Jesus, Georgetown University and the descendants gathered together over multiple joint meetings with a facilitator and truth and racial healing practitioner hosted by the Kellogg Foundation. Through their difficult conversations, they created a memorandum of understanding that created the scaffolding for the foundation and laid out the Jesuits' commitments. When Father Timothy Kesicki, a Jesuit priest and chair of the Descendants Truth & Reconciliation Trust learned about the descendants, he said that it transformed his understanding of history: 'I almost had a 180 degree turn on it, because suddenly it wasn't a past story. It was a living memory, and it begged for a response.' The year-long conversations that unfolded between the Jesuits and descendants were raw and full of challenging emotions. 'The whole thing was painful for everybody. This is a historic trauma. It was very hard for Jesuits. It's very easy to be trapped by shame and fear and a prevailing sentiment out there that says: 'Why are you digging up the past?'' said Kesicki. 'We were understanding the truth differently than our preconceived notions, there was a power and a beauty to it also.' After tracing her own family history back to those who were enslaved by the Jesuits in 2016, Trusclair Maddox attended an apology ceremony at Georgetown University where she met other descendants of Jesuit enslavement the following year. She soon joined as a board member of GU272, before taking over the helm of the Descendants Truth & Reconciliation Foundation in 2024. The Jesuits agreed to commit the first $100m to the foundation, and so far have contributed more than $45m, some of which came from the sale of former plantation land. Georgetown University also committed $10m to the trust. Half of the funding is designed to provide educational scholarships and home modifications for elderly descendants, and the other half of their dollars will go toward projects devoted to racial healing. The first racial healing grant funded an art display in New Orleans on Juneteenth. The exhibit will go to the Essence Festival in New Orleans, and Cleveland, Ohio. The foundation is also considering creating a grant for victims of fires in California, which would be open to all. Along with the educational pillar, the foundation also helps seniors by hiring occupational therapists to do an assessment of the safety needs in their home, and then a remodeler installs features such as grab bars and railings. The foundation is now piloting its program in descendant homes in Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi and Ohio, with plans to grow nationally. In spite of the anti-DEI rhetoric nationally, Trusclair Maddox said that support from individual donors has increased by 10% in recent months, and they've also received donations from more anonymous donors. Benefactors have shared with the foundation that their work is needed now more than ever. The program is also being used as a model for truth and reconciliation throughout the world. Last September, Kesicki and Trusclair Maddox presented their programs to the College of Bishops in Oxford, who were grappling with their own history of slavery in England. After the presentation, the College of Bishops sent a video expressing gratitude about what they learned over the two days. 'We're transforming their church,' Trusclair Maddox said, 'not just what we're doing here in the US.' The foundation is also working to educate young Jesuits and descendants on their shared history and to instil in them a respect for their collective future. Starting in late June, about 15 people – a combination of Jesuits and descendants – from throughout the nation will discuss racial healing in-person in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and through Zoom throughout the summer. A descendant will lead discussions on race relations and teach about the history of the Jesuits and enslavement, as well as Jim Crow policies. Trusclair Maddox foresees the foundation helping future generations reckon with the past in perpetuity. 'The heirs of enslavers and the descendants of those who were enslaved have come together, not from a litigious perspective, but from a moral perspective, and joined hands and hearts together to walk this path. As painful as it may be together, we believe that shows some hope,' Trusclair Maddox said. 'There is a possibility for a greater America. There's a possibility for people to not live in fear.'
ABC News
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- ABC News
The past is a foreign country — Santilla Chingaipe, Sita Sargeant, Steve Vizard with Natasha Mitchell
When Santilla Chingaipe stumbled on the names of enslaved Africans who arrived on the First Fleet in 1788 she couldn't look away. For Steve Vizard, an argument with his adult kids lead him to the battlefields of Gallipoli. When Sita Sargeant threw a mattress in a car and drove around Australia, what hidden herstories did she unearth? At school, the history we learn is often incomplete, mythologised, or is riddled with silences and absences. But when you start looking, the ghosts of lives past start speaking to you. They join Big Ideas host Natasha Mitchell live at the 2025 Melbourne Writers Festival. Explore more of the festival at Speakers Santilla Chingaipe Zambian-Australian film-maker, historian, writer Author, Black Convicts: How Slavery Shaped Australia Steve Vizard Pofessor, Monash University and University of Adelaide Author, Nation, Memory Myth: Gallipoli and the Australia Imagination Sita Sargeant Founder of the history walking tour social enterprise She Shapes History Author of She Shapes History Thanks to Veronica Sullivan, director of the Melbourne Writers Festival, for curating this event.
BBC News
30-05-2025
- General
- BBC News
Harvard agrees to transfer photos of enslaved people to black history museum
Harvard University has agreed to hand over a set of historic photos believed to be among the earliest depicting enslaved people in the United agreement ends a long legal battle between the institution and Tamara Lanier, an author from Connecticut who argues she is a descendant of two people shown in the images, taken in 1850, will be transferred to the International African American Museum in South Carolina, where the people shown in the photos were said it had always hoped the photos would be given to another museum. Ms Lanier said she was "ecstatic" with the result. The images are daguerreotypes, a very early form of modern-day photographs and were taken 15 years before the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution abolished photos were rediscovered in storage at Harvard's Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology in 1976. The 15 images feature people identified by the Peabody Museum as Alfred, Delia, Drana, Fassena, Jack, Jem, and Renty. According to Ms Lanier, the settlement would mean the transfer of all the images not just the ones about Renty and Delia. The photos were commissioned by Harvard professor and zoologist Louis Agassizm as part of discredited research to prove the superiority of white people. He espoused polygenism, a now debunked belief that human races evolved case formed part of public debate around how America's universities should respond to their historic links to slavery. In 2016, Harvard Law School agreed to change a shield that was based on the crest of an 18th Century did not comment on the details of the settlement but a university spokesperson said it "has long been eager to place the Zealy Daguerreotypes with another museum or other public institution to put them in the appropriate context and increase access to them for all Americans."The spokesperson added that Ms Lanier's "claim to ownership of the daguerreotypes created a complex situation, especially because Harvard has not been able to confirm that Ms Lanier is related to the individuals in the daguerreotypes." Ms Lanier sued Harvard in 2019, arguing the images were taken without consent and accusing the university of profiting from them through large licensing 2022, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upheld an earlier ruling that dismissed Ms Lanier's claim to ownership. She was, however, allowed to claim damages for emotional distress. It ruled Harvard had "complicity" in the "horrific actions" surrounding the creation of the images."Harvard's present obligations cannot be divorced from its past abuses," it Lanier told the BBC, she was "ecstatic" about the settlement. "I have always known first of all that I could never care for the daguerreotypes at the level they would require," she said. "There are so many ties that bind Renty and Delia and the other enslaved people to that particular part of South Carolina that to repatriate them there would be like a homecoming ceremony."The South Carolina museum helped Ms Lanier with her genealogy claims but was not involved in the legal battle. Its president said they intend to hold and display the images "in context with truth and empathy.""These are not gentle images and the story behind how they came to be is even more difficult to hear," Tonya Matthews told the BBC. "So to be in a space that has already created room for conversations about the inhumanity of slavery and enslavement and how far those implications echo even to today is what we do and it's our mission."
CNN
30-05-2025
- General
- CNN
Harvard agrees to relinquish early photos of enslaved people, ending a long legal battle
Human rightsFacebookTweetLink Follow Harvard University will relinquish 175-year-old photographs believed to be the earliest taken of enslaved people to a South Carolina museum devoted to African American history as part of a settlement with a woman who says she is one of the subjects' descendants. The photos of the subjects identified by Tamara Lanier as her great-great-great-grandfather Renty, whom she calls 'Papa Renty,' and his daughter Delia will be transferred from the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology to the International African American Museum in South Carolina, the state where they were enslaved in 1850 when the photos were taken, a lawyer for Lanier said Wednesday. The settlement marks the end of a 15-year battle between Lanier and the esteemed university to release the 19th-century daguerreotypes, a precursor to modern-day photographs. Lanier's attorney Joshua Koskoff told The Associated Press that the resolution is an 'unprecedented' victory for descendants of those enslaved in the US and praised his client's yearslong determination in pursuing justice for the people she had identified as her ancestors. 'I think it's one of one in American history, because of the combination of unlikely features: to have a case that dates back 175 years, to win control over images dating back that long of enslaved people — that's never happened before,' Koskoff said. A key question of the case was whether Harvard could legally be allowed to continue owning dehumanizing images of enslaved people who couldn't consent to taking part. The Massachusetts court system ultimately sided with Harvard on the question of ownership, but allowed Lanier to continue to pursue emotional damages from the institution. Harvard said Wednesday that it had long been working to relinquish ownership of the images 'to put them in the appropriate context and increase access to them for all Americans.' Negotiations between Harvard and Lanier lawyers resulted in a settlement that included the removal of the images from Harvard's ownership. On Wednesday, Lanier stood holding a portrait of Papa Renty while arm-in-arm with Susanna Moore, the great-great-great-granddaughter of Harvard biologist Louis Agassiz, who commissioned the images on behalf of the university and whose theories on racial difference were once used to support slavery in the US. Both great-great-great grandaughters — one of enslaved people and another of a man who exploited them — praised the resolution. 'This is a moment in history where the sons and daughters of stolen ancestors can stand with pride and rightfully proclaim a victory for reparations,' Lanier said. 'This pilfered property, images taken without dignity or consent and used to promote a racist psychoscience will now be repatriated to a home where their stories can be told and their humanity can be restored.' Moore called the images captured by her ancestor, Agassiz, a 'deeply racist project.' 'This victory reminds us that the meaning of such objects in museums can and should change,' she said. 'This woman standing next to me, she knew all along she was not small and she was not alone.' In 2019, Lanier sued Harvard, alleging the images were taken 'without Renty's and Delia's consent and therefore unlawfully retained.' The suit attacked Harvard for its 'exploitation' of Renty's image at a 2017 conference and in other uses. It said Harvard has capitalized on the photos by demanding a 'hefty' licensing fee to reproduce the images. Agassiz came across Renty and Delia while touring plantations in search of racially 'pure' enslaved individuals born in Africa, according to Lanier's suit. To create the images, both Renty and Delia were posed shirtless and photographed from several angles. 'To Agassiz, Renty and Delia were nothing more than research specimens,' the suit said. 'The violence of compelling them to participate in a degrading exercise designed to prove their own subhuman status would not have occurred to him, let alone mattered.' In 2021, a Massachusetts court ruled that photos are the property of the photographer, not the subject — a stance affirmed by the Massachusetts Supreme Court. However, while Harvard sought to have the case dismissed, the state high court allowed the case to proceed on Lanier's claim to emotional distress damages. The state's highest court recognized 'Harvard's complicity in the horrific actions surrounding the creation of the daguerreotypes,' saying that 'Harvard's present obligations cannot be divorced from its past abuses.' In a statement, Harvard said it had 'long been eager to place the Zealy Daguerreotypes with another museum or other public institution.' 'This settlement now allows us to move forward towards that goal,' the university said. 'While we are grateful to Ms. Lanier for sparking important conversations about these images, this was a complex situation, particularly since Harvard has not confirmed that Ms. Lanier was related to the individuals in the daguerreotypes.' Tonya M. Matthews, the CEO of the International African American Museum, called Harvard's relinquishing of the images a moment '175 years in the making.' 'The bravery, tenacity, and grace shown by Ms. Lanier throughout the long and arduous process of returning these critical pieces of Renty and Delia's story to South Carolina is a model for us all,' she said in a statement. The South Carolina museum has committed to working with Lanier and including her in decisions about how the story of the images will be told. In Lanier's lawsuit, she asked for Harvard to acknowledge its complicity in slavery, listen to Lanier's oral family history and pay an unspecified sum in damages. An undisclosed financial settlement was part of the resolution with Harvard announced Wednesday, but Koskoff said Harvard still hasn't publicly acknowledged Lanier's connection to them or its connection to perpetuating slavery in the US, Koskoff said. 'That is just left unanswered by Harvard,' he said. Koskoff said he wants to be clear that Lanier and his team 'firmly support' Harvard's current fight against the administration of US President Donald Trump as the White House moves to cut billions in federal aid and block the enrollment of international students, accusing the institution of being a hotbed of liberalism and antisemitism. 'We are not here today to bash Harvard… but that doesn't mean that they are perfect, and that doesn't mean that they don't have the obligation to tell a full history, even one that sheds poorly on their own veritas,' he said. He said Lanier isn't expecting or waiting to hear from the institution, but that the settlement speaks for itself. 'In the end, the truth will find you — you can you can only hide from it for so long,' he said. 'Yes, history is written by the winners. But over time, you know, those winners look like losers sometimes.'
The Guardian
29-05-2025
- General
- The Guardian
Harvard agrees to transfer early photos of enslaved people to African American museum
Harvard University has agreed to transfer possession of 19th-century photographs of an enslaved man and his daughter to the International African American Museum in South Carolina as part of a settlement with a woman who says she is a descendant of the enslaved individuals. Tamara Lanier, who lives in Norwich, Connecticut, who says that she is the great-great-great granddaughter of Renty Taylor and his daughter, Delia Taylor – two of the enslaved people featured in the daguerreotypes taken in 1850 that Harvard owned – sued the university in 2019 over 'wrongful seizure, possession and expropriation' of the images, which she says were taken without her ancestors' consent. In 2022, the Massachusetts supreme court ruled that Lanier could not claim ownership over the images, since she was not a descendant of the photographer or the photograph's owners, CBS reported, but it ruled that she could pursue damages and sue Harvard for emotional distress. The daguerreotypes, considered among the earliest known photographs of enslaved people, depict Renty Taylor and his daughter, Delia. They were taken in 1850, and were part of a collection commissioned by Harvard professor Louis Agassiz at the time who sought to use them to promote a pseudoscientific, white supremacist theory that falsely asserts that white people are genetically superior. In the photos, Renty Taylor was stripped nude and photographed, while Delia was naked from the waist up. This week, the years-long legal battle between Lanier and Harvard came to a close. As part of the settlement, a lawyer for Lanier said that the 175-year-old images will be transferred from Harvard's Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology to the International African American Museum in Charleston, South Carolina, which is the state where Renty Taylor and Delia were enslaved when the photographs were taken. 'This is a moment in history where the sons and daughters of stolen ancestors can stand with pride and rightfully proclaim a victory for reparations,' Lanier said on Wednesday. 'This pilfered property, images taken without dignity or consent and used to promote a racist pseudoscience will now be repatriated to a home where their stories can be told and their humanity can be restored.' Lanier's attorney Joshua Koskoff, told the Associated Press that the resolution is an 'unprecedented' victory. 'I think it's one of one in American history, because of the combination of unlikely features: to have a case that dates back 175 years, to win control over images dating back that long of enslaved people – that's never happened before,' Koskoff said. Sign up to Headlines US Get the most important US headlines and highlights emailed direct to you every morning after newsletter promotion Another of Lanier's attorneys, Benjamin Crump, also said that the agreement also includes a confidential monetary settlement, according to CBS News. In a statement, Harvard spokesman James Chisholm told CBS News: 'Harvard University has long been eager to place the Zealy Daguerreotypes with another museum or other public institution to put them in the appropriate context and increase access to them for all Americans. Now that this lawsuit has been resolved, Harvard can move forward towards that goal. 'While we are grateful to Ms. Lanier for sparking important conversations about these images, her claim to ownership of the daguerreotypes created a complex situation, especially because Harvard has not been able to confirm that Ms. Lanier is related to the individuals in the daguerreotypes' he added.
