A Homecoming 150 Years in the Making — New Orleans, 2025
In March 2025, I documented a historic and ceremony at Dillard University in New Orleans: the memorial service and jazz funeral for 19 Black Americans whose remains were finally returned home after more than 150 years. The individuals — most of them now identified by name, including Adam Grant, Alice Brown, and Moses Willis among others — died at Charity Hospital in 1872. Their heads were severed and shipped to Leipzig University in Germany to serve racist pseudoscientific research, and remained there for over a century before being repatriated.
This assignment required sensitivity, discretion, and a deep respect for the sacred nature of the proceedings. It stands as some of the most meaningful documentary work of my career.
New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell carries a box containing the skull of Henry Allen—one of 19 African Americans whose remains were taken from New Orleans in the 19th century and sent to Germany for racially biased research.
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