By Christopher Brito
April 13, 2021 / 5:11 PM / CBS News
A museum in Philadelphia apologized on Monday for collecting the skulls of Black Americans and vowed to return them to their respective communities. Dr. Christopher Woods, the director of the Penn Museum, expressed regret in a statement on behalf of the museum and the University of Pennsylvania of Archaeology and Anthropology for the unethical possession of human remains. It is time for these individuals to be returned to their ancestral communities, wherever possible, as a step toward atonement and repair for the racist and colonial practices that were integral to the formation of these collections, Woods said. He also said they will reassess their practices of collecting, stewarding, displaying and researching humans.
Image: Julianna Whalen, Penn Museum
The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology has announced its action plan regarding the repatriation or reburial of ancestors, including the remains of Black Philadelphians within the Samuel G. Morton Cranial collection. This plan is based on an April 8, 2021 report outlining recommendations from the Morton Collection Committee, which was formed in August 2020; the Committee’s report is being publicly released on April 12, 2021.
Collected in the first half of the 19th century by Samuel G. Morton whose research was used to justify white supremacist views, the collection was moved from the Drexel Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia to the Penn Museum in 1966. It is currently housed in storage in the Museum’s Physical Anthropology Section.
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