Award-winning documentarian David Grubin gazed at the 1850 daguerreotype image of enslaved African Renty and was drawn to his story and how his great-great-great-granddaughter, Tamara Lanier of Norwich, is battling Harvard University to gain possession of his photographic images.

Then he met Lanier: “She’s so dynamic," he said.

Grubin created the documentary, “Free Renty, Lanier v. Harvard,” which follows Lanier’s yearslong effort to trace her ancestry, her shock at a friend’s discovery that images of “Papa Renty” were online and her anger that Harvard had used the iconic images and charged fees for others to use them.

She learned the origin of those daguerreotypes in the scientific studies by famed Harvard scientist Louis Agassiz to “prove” that Africans were inferior to whites.

Harvard at first challenged her claim to be Renty's direct descendant, and though later acknowledging her relation to Renty and Delia, his enslaved daughter, still denied her request to obtain the images. Lanier sued Harvard in March 2019 in a case still pending in Massachusetts courts. Harvard affirms that the treatment of Renty and Delia was “abhorrent” but argues that Lanier does not have a property right to the photos.

The New London NAACP will present a special screening of the documentary at the Garde Arts Center in New London at 7 p.m. Thursday, followed by a panel discussion with Lanier, her attorneys, Josh Koskoff and Preston Tisdale, former New York Times executive editor Jill Ellen Abramson and possibly Grubin. Tickets are $15. The Day’s Audience Engagement Editor Karen Florin will moderate the panel discussion.

The documentary, which premiered in online screenings in October 2021, has been making the rounds at film festivals, colleges and special screenings. Grubin said audience discussions are always engaging.

“People move right into the conversation about reparations and what the legal issues are,” Grubin said. “There’s usually some questions about how I made the film. This film moves right into the question of: 'What do you think?' That’s great. You want people to engage in Tammy’s story. Who does own the pictures, and why does Harvard get to keep them?”

Grubin learned of Lanier’s case several years ago, when his cousin, attorney Mike Koskoff, called and said he had “an interesting case” the filmmaker might want to pursue.

“It was clear it was going to be important,” Grubin said. “As a filmmaker, you don’t know where it’s going to go. You see an image of Renty, and you’re drawn right in, but I needed to meet Tamara.”

Mike Koskoff died, but his son, Josh Koskoff, along with noted civil rights attorney Benjamin L. Crump, who led George Floyd’s family’s legal team, and Tisdale continued the case.

Grubin’s cameras accompanied Lanier to South Carolina, where Renty and Delia were enslaved on a plantation. Lanier and the film crew met with founders of the new International African American Museum set to open in January in Charleston, S.C. The cameras filmed a roomful of attorneys discussing Lanier’s lawsuit.

Lanier regrets that one recorded segment of her meeting with friend Richard Morrison of Norwich was cut from the final production. Lanier said in 2010 she was starting her ancestry research to find "Papa Renty,” the subject of many family stories. Morrison, then-owner of the Ice Cream Shop on Main Street, Norwich, offered to help with the genealogy research. Morrison came across the images of Renty on the internet.

“I went in weeks later,” Lanier recalled, “and he said, ‘Where’ve you been? I found your Papa Renty on the Internet.’ I said, ‘yeah right.’”

Agassiz had traveled to Columbia, S.C. in 1850 and hand-picked Renty and Delia and five other slaves from several plantations. He then commissioned a local daguerreotype studio to take images of them, stripped naked and in various poses and angles as part of his later-debunked theory that Africans were inferior to whites.

Harvard’s Peabody Essex Museum discovered the daguerreotypes some 40 years ago, and Lanier argues Harvard has been profiting from them, charging licensing fees for historical or educational use, and using them in the university’s own publications.

Lanier filed suit in Middlesex County Superior Court in Massachusetts. Lanier’s attorneys made passionate arguments that Renty and Delia were forced to strip, were debased and treated as less than human. Attorney Josh Koskoff argued, as criminals do not get to keep stolen items and child pornographers do not get to keep illicit photos of children, Harvard should not get to keep forced images of Renty and Delia.

Harvard countered that subjects of photographic images have never owned the images, and that Lanier waited too long after Harvard rejected her claims of ownership to file suit, missing the statute of limitations deadline. The Middlesex court agreed, and on March 1, 2021, granted Harvard’s motion to dismiss the case.

Lanier appealed to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, which heard oral arguments Nov. 1. Lanier’s attorneys repeated their emotional pleas that Lanier, not Harvard should control use and distribution of the images. Harvard attorney Anton Metlitsky said the case should not be based on whether Harvard is the rightful owner, but whether Lanier has a legal property right to the images. Harvard claims she does not.

Crump rejected Harvard’s argument that the university is a better steward of the images for the benefit of historians and educators worldwide.

“It’s not proper to say, what would Ms. Lanier do, as if this Black woman could not work collaboratively with a museum to be able to protect the First Amendment to further educate people,” Crump said at the Nov. 1 hearing.

The court was supposed to rule within 130 days, but on March 14 judges issued an order waiving the 130-day period to allow more time to review the case. The parties still await a ruling. Even if they rule in Lanier’s favor, the judges said that would not grant Lanier possession of the daguerreotypes, but only allow for a court trial on the merits of the case.

Grubin did not wait for the court’s ruling to finish the documentary.

“There’s a way we can eventually put in the final verdict, but you get the story in the film,” Grubin said.

c.bessette@theday.com

"Free Renty" documentary screening at The Garde Thursday

SCREENING: "Free Renty: Lanier v. Harvard"

WHERE: The Garde Arts Center, 325 State St., New London.

WHEN: 7 p.m. Thursday, June 16. Panel discussion follows screening.

TICKETS: $15. Call (860) 444-7373, ext. 1 or go to www.gardearts.org.

SPONSOR: New London branch of the NAACP.