Lanier identified Renty and Delia as her ancestors through census records

Evidence

In 1850, Louis Agassiz commissioned the photographer J. T. Zealy to capture what he believed to be evidence of racial inferiority. The enslaved men and women depicted in these daguerreotypes have touched the hearts and conscience of people worldwide. Amazingly, I have historical and US Census information confirming that two of these slaves are in fact my ancestors. On numerous occasions, I have reached out to the Harvard academia and found them to be unresponsive. I have called the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute of African Studies; have left messages and forwarded emails almost to the point of ad nauseam. — Tamara Lanier, From These Roots, 292