Those seeking irrefutable proof of the power of an image should look no further than the yearslong, highly publicized dispute over a selection of 1850 daguerreotypes of enslaved Southerners. Until last week, they been part of the museum collection of Harvard University.

But in late May, after an effort that began 15 years ago, the university announced it settled a lawsuit filed in 2019 by Tamara Lanier, a descendant of two subjects of the images, to relinquish 15 daguerreotypes of Renty, Delia and other people.

Advancing from Harvard

Some of those images are heading home to South Carolina, given from Harvard to the International African American Museum. Two of the subjects, a man known as Renty and his daughter Delia who were disrobed from the waist up, were enslaved in South Carolina.

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