More than 150 years after their deaths, the remains of 19 Black people were finally laid to rest in New Orleans — the city they once called home — with the dignity they were long denied.
On May 31, Dillard University hosted a multifaith memorial service and jazz funeral to honor the individuals whose skulls were stolen from their bodies in the 1870s and shipped to Leipzig, Germany, for racist scientific research.
The service included drumming by the Kumbuka African Dance and Drum Collective and a procession led by the Black Men of Labor. The remains were buried at the Hurricane Katrina Memorial, according to The Washington Post.
“We ironically know these 19 because of the horrific thing that happened to them after their death — the desecration of their bodies,” said Monique Guillory, president of Dillard University, which led the effort to bring the remains home. “This is actually an opportunity for us to recognize and commemorate the humanity of all of these individuals who would have been denied, you know, such a respectful send-off and final burial.”
The 19 individuals died in 1872 at Charity Hospital, which treated patients across racial and class lines. After their deaths, a local physician removed their skulls and sent them to Leipzig, where they were used in phrenology research — a now-discredited pseudoscience that falsely claimed skull shape could determine racial intelligence and was often used to justify white supremacy, according to NBC News.
In 2023, officials from the University of Leipzig contacted the City of New Orleans about returning the skulls. That outreach led to the formation of a local repatriation committee chaired by Dr. Eva Baham, a retired Dillard historian.
The remains were placed in hand-crafted wooden boxes and brought to Dillard’s Lawless Memorial Chapel for the service. According to local news station WWLTV, the university partnered with the City of New Orleans and University Medical Center to ensure the individuals would finally receive a dignified burial.
“It is a profound honor for a coalition of community partners to work alongside the University of Leipzig to ensure that these individuals are returned home with the dignity and reverence they were long denied,” Baham said at the service. “This collaboration is not only an act of justice — it is an act of healing, rooted in a shared commitment to truth and historical accountability.”
Researchers at Dillard University identified most of the individuals using municipal death records. A partial list includes Adam Grant, Isaak Bell, Hiram Smith, William Pierson, Alice Brown, John Brown, Henry Williams, Hiram Malone, William Roberts, and Priscilla Hatchet. Two remain unidentified. Some had only recently arrived in the city before their deaths. So far, no direct descendants have been found, but researchers plan to continue searching.
“These were really poor, indigent people at the end of the 19th century, but … they had names, they had addresses, they walked the streets of the city that we love,” Guillory told The Washington Post. “We all deserve a recognition of our humanity and the value of our lives.”