The University of Pennsylvania reveals the controversial histories of using Black ancestral bones for research.
Date: 2021
The University of Pennsylvania announces they will return the skulls of 53 people from Cuba and the U.S. who were enslaved. These ancestors' bodies were used for scientific research, and the skulls will be returned to their communities of origin.
Yet, a week after this announcement, it becomes public knowledge that the university also holds the bones of two Black girls from the Black Liberation group, MOVE, who were executed in the bombing of their home by the Philadelphia police and FBI in 1985. It appears that the bones of Tree and Delisha Africa were non-consensually taken after the fire, and have been used at the University of Pennsylvania and the Penn Museum for decades. Their family and community demand that their sacred remains be returned immediately. (At the time of this research their bones have still not been returned.)