NEW ORLEANS (AP) — New Orleans celebrated the rehabilitation and burial of 19 African American bodies whose skulls were sent to Germany in the 19th century due to racist research practices.
On Saturday, a multifaceted service ceremony, including one of the city’s most distinctive traditions, a jazz funeral, paid tribute to humanity as people return to the final resting spot at Hurricane Katrina Memorial.
“We ironically know what happened after their death, the horrors that happened after their death, because of the offspring of their bodies,” Monique Guilloly, president of Dillard University, a historically black civilian liberal arts college, led the receipt of the bodies on behalf of the city. “This is in fact an opportunity to recognize and commemorate the humanity of all these individuals that we would have been rejected.
All 19 are believed to have died from natural causes between 1871 and 1872, serving all races and lessons in New Orleans during the oppression of white supremacists in the 1800s. The hospital was closed in 2005, following Hurricane Katrina.
The body was seated in 19 wooden boxes in the university’s chapel during Saturday service, and also included Kumbuka African drums and dance collective music.
A New Orleans doctor provided 19 skulls to pleural research, which engaged in German researchers.
“Every kind of experiment was done on the bodies of living and dead black people,” said historian Eva Baham, who tried to repatriate the bodies of individuals at Dillard University. “People who had no more agents than theirs.”
In 2023, the University of Leipzig in Germany contacted the city of New Orleans to find a way to return the body, Guilloly said. The University of Leipzig did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
“With our own moral demonstrations here in New Orleans and Leipzig, with a professor who wants to do something to restore the dignity of these people,” Baham said.
Researchers at Dillard University say more excavations remain, including trying to track potential offspring. They believe that some people are likely to have recently been freed from slavery.
“These were really poor and poor people at the end of the 19th century, but… they had names, speeches, they walked through the towns we love,” Guilloly said. “We all deserve acknowledgement of our humanity and the value of our lives.”
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