Penn Museum reburies the bones of 19 Black Philadelphians, causing a dispute with community members

By GRAHAM LEE BREWER
Associated Press

For decades, the University of Pennsylvania has held hundreds of skulls that were once used to promote white supremacy through racist scientific research. As part of a growing effort among museums to reevaluate the curation of human remains, the Ivy League school laid some of the remains to rest last week in a local historic Black cemetery. Officials are holding a memorial service for them on Saturday. The university says it is trying to begin rectifying past wrongs. But some community members feel excluded from the process, illustrating the challenges that institutions face when it comes to addressing institutional racism.