Conversations at Noon on the Connecticut Freedom Trail – From These Roots: My Fight with Harvard to Reclaim My Legacy

Join us online for this conversation with Tamara K. Lanier, author of From These Roots: My Fight with Harvard to Reclaim My Legacy, about the repatriation of artifacts, archives, race, and justice. A plaintiff in the lawsuit Lanier v. President & Fellows of Harvard College, Tamara documents her fight with Harvard over images of her enslaved ancestors Renty and Delia taken in 1850. These photographs, known as daguerreotypes, were commissioned by Harvard scientist, Louis Agassiz, known for supporting racist theories of polygenesis. The images, were among a collection at Harvard University’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, and are considered the first-ever photos of enslaved people from Africa.

Tamara K. Lanier is a tireless champion for truth and justice known for her long and distinguished record of public service and social advocacy. She is a twenty-seven-year veteran of the State of Connecticut Judicial Branch, where she retired as a Chief Probation Officer. She is a board member of Connecticut’s Racial Profiling Prohibition Project, the past Vice President of the New London NAACP, and an active member of The Saint John’s Christian Church of Groton, Connecticut. Lanier has several passions, one of which is to eradicate racial and ethnic disparities in Connecticut’s Criminal Justice System and to put an end to the ugly practice of racial profiling. She has been a constant voice for change and has traveled the country promoting the need for a national dialogue relative to slavery and its impact on society. She lives in Norwich, Connecticut.

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