After the University of Pennsylvania announced the reburial of the 19 Black people whose bones were used for racist scientific research, the community criticized officials at the Philadelphia school for their lack of involvement in the decision.
Spearheaded by physician Samuel George Morton in the 1830s, The Associated Press reported that the remains linked his study to prove that white people are the superior race. In addition, his work set out to give justification to slavery.
According to the report, Morton compiled 900 skulls, which were a part of the Morton Cranial Collection and expanded after his passing. Amid Penn Museum’s efforts to reverse its wrongdoing in the wake of the push for reparations, community members wanted their voices to be heard and called out its director.
“That’s not repatriation. We’re saying that Christopher Woods does not get to decide to do that,” activist Ally A. Muhammad told the AP. “The same institution that has been holding and exerting control for years over these captive ancestors is not the same institution that can give them ceremony.”
Like other museums around the globe, the university publicly apologized for its unethical practices and handling of the remains they were still using in their teachings in 2020.
“It is time for these individuals to be returned to their ancestral communities, wherever possible, as a step toward atonement and repair for the racist and colonial practices that were integral to the formation of these collections. We will also reassess our practices of collecting, stewarding, displaying, and researching human remains,” Director Christopher Woods wrote in 2021.
