In a significant act of repatriation and remembrance, the skulls of enslaved Black Americans, once part of a collection at Harvard University, have been returned to New Orleans, according to reports. These remains were part of a 19th-century collection amassed by Harvard professor Louis Agassiz, who used them to support racist theories of polygenism.

The return of the skulls was marked by a solemn memorial service in New Orleans, honoring the individuals whose remains had been held in academic collections for over a century. Community leaders, descendants, and activists gathered to pay their respects and acknowledge the historical injustices associated with the collection and display of human remains without consent. 

Dillard University President Monique Guillory said at a news conference Wednesday that the memorial will be “about confronting a dark chapter in medical and scientific history while choosing a path of justice, honor and remembrance.”

“They were stripped of their dignity,” Guillory said, over “a practice rooted in racism and exploitation. They were people with names. They were people with stories and histories. Some of them had families, mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, human beings.” They were not specimens, she continued, “not numbers.”

This repatriation effort is part of a broader movement to address the ethical concerns surrounding human remains in museum and university collections, particularly those obtained during periods of slavery and colonialism. Harvard University has faced increasing pressure to return such remains to their communities of origin and to confront its historical ties to slavery.