Denying descendants’ claims to the images perpetuates the systematic subversion of Black property rights

Evidence

“Every day that Harvard maintains those positions compounds the injustices inflicted on Renty and Delia in its name, and further harms you as their descendant and the rightful owner of images taken without their consent,” Mike said. “By denying your superior claim to the daguerreotypes, Harvard is perpetuating the systematic subversion of Black property rights that began during slavery and continued for a century thereafter.” — Tamara Lanier, From These Roots, 786

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: This condenses the book’s thesis — property law as the afterlife of slavery — into a single causal claim: the image is property, its ownership flows through lineage, and Harvard’s refusal is a continuation of a legally sanctioned expropriation rather than a novel dispute.
• ADDENDUM: Directly extends the reader’s ‘On Sacrifice’ theme of institutions holding and repurposing what was taken under coercion — the daguerreotypes as a parallel to other captured/possessed objects.
• XREF: connects to: Narratives of black invisibility legitimate land seizures by erasing prior claims — Tavengwa Gwekwerere, Davie E. Mutasa, and Kudakwashe Chitofiri, Settlers, Rhodesians, and Supremacists:…, 57