Sound familiar? Don't worry about wtf she gon do with them. It would be well within her rights to do exactly what Harvard did with the images (which is to say, let them sit on a shelf for 100+ yrs).
Hi! hmmm... Let me look into this; I'll see what I can come up with. Interesting timing bc I was reading up some info on Caricom the other day - from another discussion group. (not saying that's who you are referencing but I find that a lot of these so-called civil rights organizations rarely put grassroots level black thinkers in their employ or those that share a common interests other than name recognition- like their work is counterintuitive or in conflict with the goals and mission statements that the organization is supposed to represent). Another issue is how orgs like SPLC and Urban Institute hire white managers as their main litigators when there's capable black attorneys or black urban planners who can act as leaders in those positions. Lack of representation in organizations whose primary purpose is to help blacks but discriminate or have a culture that is not supportive of blacks.@DPresidential @Nicole0416 -- Afternoon
I have a question. I am not sure if you can help me with it.
But, if a Civil Rights Org - is not practicing their stated goals and discriminating against a race/ethnicity - other than calling them to task by writing letters to their board and organization -- and in addition to getting press to cover the discrimination -- is there anything to do to try to get the org investigated or in trouble?
Or to be investigated for hiring and discrimination practices?
Similar to how the SPLC is going through issues -- they also do not hire Black Americans -- or advance them to higher ranks in their orgs. Or have many on their boards -- and some who are anti-Black on their boards.
How can one call these orgs who do not practice what they preach as orgs to task? Well, other than the normal tactics.
Judge dismisses lawsuit over slave portraits at Harvard
March 4, 2021
BOSTON (AP) — A Massachusetts state judge has dismissed a lawsuit from a Connecticut woman who said Harvard University illegally owned photos of her enslaved ancestors and refused to turn them over.
The lawsuit dismissed Tuesday centered on a series of 1850 photos thought to be among the earliest images of enslaved people in the United States. The photos depict a South Carolina man identified as Renty and his daughter, Delia. Both were posed shirtless and photographed from several angles.
The photos were commissioned by Harvard biologist Louis Agassiz, whose theories on racial difference were used to support slavery in the U.S.
In her 2019 lawsuit, Tamara Lanier, of Norwich, Connecticut, said Renty and Delia are her ancestors and that the photos were taken against their will. She demanded the photos from Harvard, saying the Ivy League school had exploited the portraits for profit, including by using Renty’s image on the cover of a book.
Lanier’s lawsuit alleged that Agassiz saw Renty and Delia as “nothing more than research specimens” and forced them to participate in a “degrading exercise designed to prove their own subhuman status.”
The lawsuit says Lanier verified her genealogical ties to Renty, whom she calls “Papa Renty” and says is her great-great-great-grandfather.
But the judge hearing the case sided with Harvard, which argued that Lanier had no legal claim to the photos. In her decision, Middlesex Superior Court Judge Camille Sarrouf said the photos are the property of the photographer, not the subject.
“Fully acknowledging the continuing impact slavery has had in the United States, the law, as it currently stands, does not confer a property interest to the subject of a photograph regardless of how objectionable the photograph’s origins may be,” Sarrouf wrote in the decision.
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, one of Lanier’s lawyers, said he planned to appeal the case.
“We remain convinced of the correctness of Ms. Lanier’s claim to these images of her slave ancestors and that she will be on the right side of history when this case is finally settled,” Crump said in a statement. “It is past time for Harvard to atone for its past ties to slavery and white supremacy research and stop profiting from slave images.”
In a statement, Harvard said it’s exploring how to put the photos in “an appropriate home” that “allows them to be more accessible to a broader segment of the public and to tell the stories of the enslaved people that they depict.”
August 23, 2021
After Student Pressure, Harvard Law School Ditches Logo Connected to Slavery
The former shield featured the family crest of Isaac Royall, Jr., who made his wealth through the labor of enslaved people.
The new Harvard Law School shield (left) replaces the retired seal (right), which sparked protests over its inclusion of imagery seen to glorify slavery.
Harvard Law School (HLS) announced a new shield this morning after years of protests over its previous emblem, whose imagery some viewed as a glorification of slavery. The controversial former seal featured the family crest of Isaac Royall, Jr., a founding donor of the school who made his wealth through the labor of enslaved people in the mid-1700s.
The shield was officially retired in 2016 after a student activist group known as “Royall Must Fall” (RMF) successfully campaigned for its removal. Modeled after a student-led effort to remove a statue of British colonialist Cecil Rhodes from the University of Cape Town’s campus, the group is part of a larger movement for racial equity and institutional change at the university. RMF staged in-person rallies and sent an open letter to former HLS Dean Martha Minow calling for the symbol’s replacement.
In a 2015 op-ed, RMF members Alexander Clayborne, Sean Cuddihy, and Antuan Johnson described the crest as “a memorial to one of the largest and most brutal slave owners in Massachusetts.” The Royalls, they note, were notorious for their violent torture and killings of enslaved people. Daniel R. Coquillette and Bruce A. Kimball’s history of Harvard Law School, On the Battlefield of Merit (2015), describes the family’s murder of 88 Black individuals — including 77 burned alive at the stake — after a failed rebellion.
@xoxodede
Harvard Art Museums names new curator of American collection
Museums have long been a place of passion, community, and connection for Horace D. Ballard, the newly appointed Theodore E. Stebbins Jr. Associate Curator of American Art at the Harvard Art Museums, who took over his new role on Sept 1.
=============
His name points to him being a diasporan from an English speaking colony. Possibly AA.
Regardless of where he's from, what kind of pressure can be applied about the thread topic on him and the University? The timing seems like a good opportunity to press the issue.
Mentioned that he's likely a diasporan, and from enslaved people because that can be used in pressing the issue.
