Harvard’s lineage contest exploits century-old policies that destroyed Black genealogical records

Evidence

“And by contesting your claim of lineage, Harvard is shamelessly capitalizing on the intentional damage done to Black Americans’ genealogy by a century’s worth of policies that forcibly separated families, erased enslaved family names, withheld birth and death records, and criminalized literacy,” he said, with emphasis on forcibly, erased, and criminalized, as I nodded along. — Tamara Lanier, From These Roots, 788

Categorization

• XREF: Crucial for the reader’s stated goal of following how archival design caused genealogical obstruction — the plaintiff argues Harvard weaponizes the gap it helped create.