My Fight with Harvard to Reclaim My LegacyConnecticut Freedom TrailHartfordJuly 22, 2025 The Connecticut Freedom Trail hosted ...

The photos taken in 1850 of Renty, Delia and 11 other slaves disappeared for more than a century but were rediscovered in 1976 in the attic of Harvard University's Peabody Museum of Archaeology ...

Renty, who Lanier said was around 65 when the Agassiz photos were taken, lived on a cotton plantation in Columbia, South Carolina, that was owned by Benjamin Franklin Taylor.

Free Renty looks beyond the headlines to contextualize Lanier’s quest to reclaim her inheritance and situates her journey within a broader conversation about reparations.

A sample image of Papa Renty and his daughter Delia, taken in 1850, is shown during a news conference announcing a lawsuit against Harvard University on March 20, 2019.

Renty and his daughter Delia, who was also forced into slavery, were “forced to pose for the daguerreotypes without consent, dignity and compensation” (p. 3, lawsuit).

Renty was stripped naked and photographed from every angle “without consent, dignity, or compensation,” according to the lawsuit, which was filed in Middlesex County Superior Court.

Renty, who Lanier said was around 65 when the Agassiz photos were taken, lived on a cotton plantation in Columbia, South Carolina, that was owned by Benjamin Franklin Taylor.

“For years, Papa Renty’s slave owners profited from his suffering,” Lanier said in a statement at the time. “It’s time for Harvard to stop doing the same thing to our family.” ...

Lanier messaged Harvard University about the daguerreotypes in 2011. In a complaint that offers more personal insight to the people behind Agassiz's studies, she notes that Papa Renty quietly resisted ...

The university has agreed to relinquish ownership of two 175-year-old daguerreotypes of an enslaved father named Renty and his daughter Delia.