From These Roots

One womans unrelenting mission to reclaim her ancestors history and honor their lineage pits her against one of the countrys most powerful institutions: Harvard UniversityTamara Lanier grew up listening to her mothers 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 mothers health declined, she pushed her daughter to dig into those stories. "Tell them about Papa Renty," she would say. It was her mothers last wish.Thus begins one womans remarkable commitment to document that story. Her discovery of a nineteenth-century daguerreotype at Harvard Universitys 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 aboutPapa 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 Rentys 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 Americas stained historythe 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 womans 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.