How A Museum's Human Skull Collection Sparked A Racial Reckoning
Apr 16, 2021,05:50am EDT|6,837 views
Suzanne Rowan Kelleher Forbes Staff
Following years of protests by students and activists, the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology is finally atoning for a racist sin.
The Penn Museum, as it is commonly known, apologized this week for its “unethical possession” of human remains in the Samuel G. Morton Cranial Collection, some 1,300 human skulls that were used in the 19th century to promote white supremacism. A plan was announced for the repatriation or reburial of more than 50 skulls belonging to former slaves from both Cuba and the United States—some from Philadelphia, where the museum is located.
The collection’s inclusion of slave remains was revealed in 2019 by the Penn & Slavery Project, an ongoing student research investigation into the university’s connection to slavery and scientific racism.
“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,” said the museum’s new director, Dr. Christopher Woods, in a statement. “We will also reassess our practices of collecting, stewarding, displaying, and researching human remains.”
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/suzannerowankelleher/2021/04/16/penn-museum-samuel-morton-human-skull-collection-black-slaves-repatriation/?sh=414d40197d4c
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