May 28, 2025—Harvard University will relinquish ownership of the earliest known photographs of enslaved people as part of a historic legal settlement announced Wednesday by nationally renowned civil rights attorney Ben Crump. The agreement resolves a 2019 lawsuit filed by Tamara Lanier, the great-great-great-granddaughter of an enslaved man known as “Papa Renty,” whose image, along with that of hi…
Harvard Reaches Historic Settlement Over Earliest Known Photographs of Enslaved Americans
