From These Roots: My Fight with Harvard to Reclaim My Legacy
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- Synopsis
- One woman&’s unrelenting mission to reclaim her ancestors&’ history and honor their lineage pits her against one of the country&’s most powerful institutions: Harvard UniversityTamara Lanier grew up listening to her mother&’s stories about her ancestors. As Black Americans descended from enslaved people brought to America, they knew all too well how fragile the tapestry of a lineage could be. As her mother&’s health declined, she pushed her daughter to dig into those stories. "Tell them about Papa Renty," she would say. It was her mother&’s last wish. Thus begins one woman&’s remarkable commitment to document that story. Her discovery of a nineteenth-century daguerreotype at Harvard University&’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, one of the first-ever photos of enslaved people from Africa, reveals a dark-skinned man with short-cropped silver hair and chiseled cheekbones. The information read &“Renty, Congo.&” All at once, Lanier knew she was staring at the ancestor her mother told her so much about—Papa Renty.In a compelling account covering more than a decade of her own research, Lanier takes us on her quest to prove her genealogical bloodline to Papa Renty&’s that pits her in a legal battle against Harvard and its army of lawyers. The question is, who has claim to the stories, artifacts, and remnants of America&’s stained history—the institutions who acquired and housed them for generations, or the descendants who have survived? From These Roots is not only a historical record of one woman&’s lineage but a call to justice that fights for all those demanding to reclaim, honor, and lay to rest the remains of mishandled lives and memories.
- Copyright:
- 2025
Book Details
- Book Quality:
- Publisher Quality
- Book Size:
- 288 Pages
- ISBN-13:
- 9780593727737
- Related ISBNs:
- 9780593727720, 9798217067282, 9798217067299
- Publisher:
- Crown
- Date of Addition:
- 01/28/25
- Copyrighted By:
- Tamara Lanier
- Adult content:
- No
- Language:
- English
- Has Image Descriptions:
- No
- Categories:
- Nonfiction, Biographies and Memoirs
- Submitted By:
- Bookshare Staff
- Usage Restrictions:
- This is a copyrighted book.