After 150 years, the skulls of 19 Black Americans were returned to New Orleans. These individuals died between December 1871 and January 1872 as patients at Charity Hospital. Most were formerly enslaved or born into slavery.
But instead of being buried with dignity, their skulls were removed without consent and sent to Germany for phrenological research, a racist pseudoscience that claimed to measure intelligence by skull shape to prove Black inferiority.
Their remains ended up at Leipzig University and were stored for over a century. In 2023, the university acknowledged the theft and agreed to return them.
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, researchers used phrenology, craniometry, eugenics, and other now-discredited fields to claim that measurements of skulls, brains, and physical features could rank human groups in a hierarchy. Those ideas were widely used to justify slavery, segregation, colonialism, and discrimination. The collection and study of Black remains without consent was, unfortunately, part of that broader history.
Damn Colonizers!!!!! May your seeds on earth bear your karma.