Harvard sued over profiting, use of slave photography

Woman Sues Harvard to Get back Slave Photos of her Family.

In 1850, a Harvard professor with a twisted theory of white superiority had research photographs taken of two slaves from South Carolina — a father and daughter, stripped to the waist, who stare hauntingly into the camera.

Tamara Lanier, 54, a retired chief probation officer from Norwich, filed suit Wednesday in Massachusetts. Papa Renty is her great-great-great-grandfather, Lanier argues in demanding that the university stop profiting from the black-and-white daguerreotype prints — and exploiting her ancestors.