NFAC Lecture Series: Tamara Lanier, From These Roots

Join us at the North Fork Arts Center on Feb. 8, 2025, for an exclusive presentation of Tamara Lanier’s memoir, From These Roots: My Fight With Harvard to Reclaim My Legacy. The lecture starts at 3 p.m. and ends at 4:30 p.m.

Tamara Lanier, in her quest to trace her genealogy, discovered that her ancestor, Papa Renty, was the subject of an infamous set of daguerreotypes of enslaved Africans commissioned by naturalist Louis Agassiz in 1851. The artifacts, currently housed at Harvard’s Peabody Museum, were used to promote racial inferiority theories. When Lanier approached Harvard with her findings, she was dismissed, sparking a decade-long legal battle that could result in the first reparations case ever awarded in the United States.

The lecture will include a reading from Lanier’s memoir, followed by a conversation with local journalist Liz Welch, who worked closely with Lanier on this compelling story. The event raises profound questions, including, ‘Who has the right to own the artifacts of America’s painful history?’

A book signing will follow the lecture, and copies of From These Roots will be available for purchase through Burton’s Books. The cost to attend is $20.

From These Roots is not just a historical record of one woman’s lineage, but a call to justice for all those demanding to reclaim, honor, and lay to rest the remains of mishandled lives and memories.