Harvard controlled the daguerreotypes’ narrative and dismissed Lanier’s kinship claims

Evidence

Part 4 of the complaint lists all the ways in which Harvard could have seized on this historic opportunity and worked with me, a descendant of Renty and Delia, to tell the real story of these extraordinary people. It includes Ellie’s discovery in 1976, a moment the university could have embraced. Instead Ellie’s work was discouraged and she was relegated to being referred to as “the Harvard associate,” while the Peabody began to control the narrative of how and when the daguerreotypes were viewed and interpreted. When I approached them in 2010, they could have invited me to be part of the storytelling of these historic images, but instead they doubled down, claiming that I could not prove my relationship. — Tamara Lanier, From These Roots, 1088