Talk on the racial theories of inferiority and eugenics that desecrated Black families by stealing their bodies for ‘scientific experiments’
In 2021 the bodily remains of two Black children killed in the 1985 M.O.V.E. house bombing were located on a basement shelf at the University of Pennsylvania. The medical examiner transferred them to Princeton University to use in a forensic anthropology course, rather than to their family members for burial.
Princeton later gave them to researchers at U of Penn. to add to their anthropological collection.
The story uncovered generations of Black people whose final resting places became the dusty basement shelves of museums, universities, and laboratories without the knowledge or consent of their families.
Dr. Shantella Sherman, historian, and founder of The Acumen Group, will deliver a talk exploring;
- The history of grave robbing in Black communities
- The development and revitalization that cemented over or razed Black cemeteries
- The use of Black bodies in race experiments after death.
Dr. Sherman will also offer insight into the trauma endured by families unable to lay their relatives – many of them children – to rest through spiritual burial rites, and the ongoing attempts by family members and activists to have those bodies, “now trapped between worlds,” returned to them.
Other coming events from Black History Walks
- Harry Belafonte season at BFI Southbank
- Harlem in Mayfair Black History Walk
- Secrets of Soho walk
- Theatreland Black history Walk
- How to teach Black history at GCSE
- The Little Mermaid’s real Black History and the books to prove it
- How Black people won World War 2
- Black History Walks Volume 1 book signing