By Stacy M. Brown
Black Press USA Senior National Correspondent
More than 150 years after their crania were taken from New Orleans and shipped to Germany for racist scientific experiments, 19 Black Americans were finally laid to rest. In a moving display of remembrance and restoration, Dillard University, the City of New Orleans, and University Medical Center held a traditional jazz funeral and memorial service to honor the 13 men, four women, and two unidentified individuals whose remains were stolen in the 1870s by local physician Henry D. Schmidt and sent overseas.
The ceremony, held on May 31 at Dillard University’s Lawless Memorial Chapel, included student pallbearers, an interfaith service, and a burial at the Katrina Memorial. New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell, Dillard University President Monique Guillory and community leaders led the ceremony.
“We honor the lives of those who have gone before us and place in remembrance with dignity and respect the sacred remains of those 19 people,” Cantrell intoned during the ceremony. “As mayor of New Orleans and on behalf of our citizens in the spirit of divine love, we pray that they will forever rest in God’s perfect peace.”
Guillory said she was humbled that Dillard had the opportunity to host and facilitate such an important ceremony.
“Dillard University is deeply honored to serve as a steward in the sacred process of cultural repatriation,” said Guillory in a statement. “This moment calls us to bear witness to a painful chapter in our collective history while recognizing the unique role our institution plays in preserving the dignity and legacy of those who were wrongfully taken. This is more than an act of remembrance – it is a restoration of humanity.”
Each person – Adam Grant, Isaak Bell, Hiram Smith, William Pierson, Henry Williams, John Brown, Hiram Malone, William Roberts, Alice Brown, Prescilla Hatchet, Marie Louise, Mahala, Samuel Prince, John Tolman, Henry Allen, Moses Willis, Henry Anderson, and two unidentified individuals – was memorialized in a handcrafted funeral vessel etched with their name, age and date of death. The vessels featured Adinkra symbols representing universal spirituality and were carried by students from universities in the New Orleans area. The service involved multiple faiths—including Christianity, Islam, Judaism, SGI Buddhism, the Baha’i tradition and West African rituals—to honor the unknown spiritual identities of the deceased.
“This was deeply cultural and deeply intentional,” Eva Baham, chair of the Repatriation Committee and former Dillard professor, said during an appearance on Black Press USA’s “Let It Be Known” news morning show. “We weren’t going to bring them home just to store them away. They were brought back with reverence and sealed into the earth.”
The repatriation followed a 2023 outreach by the University of Leipzig, where the crania had been housed for over a century. Researchers there acknowledged the harm done and initiated the return. The remains, all traced to individuals who died at Charity Hospital in 1871 and 1872, were taken during a time when pseudoscience like phrenology falsely claimed to measure intelligence and inferiority by skull shape—an ideology used to justify slavery and racial hierarchy.
“This is how we begin to heal from the atrocities committed in the name of science,” Baham said.
The final resting place, the Katrina Memorial, sits near the historic grounds where Charity Hospital once buried the poor and marginalized.
“We may never know where their full bodies are,” Baham noted. “But perhaps—just perhaps—we brought them back together in spirit.”