What Remains: More MOVE remains found
Just a few weeks after we released the What Remains series, news broke that the Penn Museum discovered additional remains of 1985 MOVE bombing victims in the museum.
How did this happen? And what's next for the thousands of other human remains still in their possession?
Producer Felix Poon knew just the person to talk to for answers.
Featuring Rachel Watkins.
ADDITIONAL MATERIALS
Read the Penn Museum’s statement about the latest discovery of additional MOVE remains at the museum.
Listen to WHYY’s news report, Penn Museum discovers another set of human remains from the MOVE bombing.
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CREDITS
Host: Nate Hegyi
Reported, produced, and mixed by Felix Poon
Edited by Taylor Quimby.
Executive producer: Taylor Quimby
Rebecca Lavoie is NHPR’s Director of On-Demand Audio.
Music in this episode is from Lennon Hutton and Blue Dot Sessions.
The theme music for the What Remains mini-series is by Lennon Hutton
Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio
Submit a question to the “Outside/Inbox.” We answer queries about the natural world, climate change, sustainability, and human evolution. You can send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837).
Audio Transcript
Note: Episodes of Outside/In are made as pieces of audio, and some context and nuance may be lost on the page. Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and may contain errors.
Felix Poon: Hey, this is Outside/in producer Felix Poon. I’m here with an update to our special mini-series, What Remains.
Just a few weeks after we finished our series, some BIG news broke.
The Penn Museum has discovered more human remains in its possession associated with the 1985 MOVE bombing. WHYY reporter Peter Crimmins reports…
This is a news clip from NPR-member station WHYY in Philadelphia.
Peter Crimmins: Three years ago, after public protest, the penn museum returned what remains it had to the Africa family, apologized, and promised to do an ongoing comprehensive inventory of its holdings of human remains. Now this week more remains were discovered.
[MUX IN]
For those who listened to What Remains, this might sound like a bit of deja vu.
In the series, I reported that in 2021, the public learned the Penn Museum was holding the remains of children who were murdered in the 1985 police bombing of the radical Black liberation group known as MOVE.
After public outcry, the Penn Museum said it returned, quote, “all known MOVE remains to the Africa family,” unquote.
This whole thing was a huge source of distrust in the museum. And critics were convinced that the museum still had MOVE remains in their possession.
When I interviewed museum director Chris Woods for the series - he denied this.
Chris Woods: Those remains remained here far far far too long. And we returned all known MOVE remains to the Africa family. MOVE remains should not be in the museum. And to our knowledge, they aren’t.
So how is it that three years later, additional MOVE remains were found in the museum?
[MUX SWELL]
I knew exactly who I wanted to talk to to get answers. Biological anthropologist Rachel Watkins.
There are a couple reasons why.
Rachel is at the forefront of advocating for better ethical standards in her field. She has a storied background that begins at Howard University, when she was an undergraduate working in the William Montague Cobb Collection.
Rachel Watkins: and it was something that fascinated me then and kind of, you know, provided this, this window into looking at the human experience from a biological perspective and a cultural perspective.
The Cobb collection by the way, was an assortment of human remains collected by America’s first Black anthropologist - William Montague Cobb.
Cobb had studied these remains to refute the racist science of his white colleagues.
But by the 1980s the collection was a bit of a mess.
Rachel was one of a couple dozen research assistants who helped clean, fumigate, and move the collection to a new lab in the 1990s. And then
Rachel Watkins: Shortly before we were done curating the Cobb collection, the ancestors in lower Manhattan were uncovered during the GSA development project.
[MUX]
Rachel got to research the remains from the New York African Burial Ground – which we also talked about in the What Remains series. She worked closely with Michael Blakey, the biological anthropologist who first coined the term “descendant community,” and pioneered new ethical standards in the field.
All this to say…Rachel knows a thing or two about righting the wrongs of racism in biological anthropology.
But the other big reason I wanted to talk to her? She just started a new job…at the Penn Museum. Her position was created as part of the museum’s stated commitment to reckon with its racist legacy.
And in just a few months on the job, she and the rest of the team have already uncovered these additional MOVE remains
So… I wanted the inside scoop.
Coming up, my conversation with Rachel Watkins. Stick around.
[MUX]
<<PREROLL BREAK>>
Felix Poon: I’m joined today for this episode by Rachel Watkins. Rachel is a biological anthropologist and curator of the biological anthropology section of the Penn Museum. She’s been in that position since July of this year. Rachel, welcome to the show.
Rachel Watkins: Thanks so much for having me, Felix.
Felix Poon: So, Rachel, I want to ask you about the latest set of move remains that were found at the museum back in 2021. The museum said it returned. All known move remains to the Africa family. But now, more than three years later, it turns out the museum did in fact have more remains. So how did this happen?
Rachel Watkins: Well, I think the operative word here is known. Um, that statement at the time was accurate, that all known remains of children who were killed in the move bombing that were at the museum were indeed identified and returned of the director committed to continuing to search for the remains of more children based on what was documented, and followed through on that in the form of hiring a team of people, including myself, um, a collections manager and a registrar to be able to conduct a methodical, a systematic review of all of the human remains in our care. And because of that process, the remains were found. So the system that was put in place to follow through on the director's commitment is working.
Felix Poon: I think it's hard for people who are outside the museum world to understand how human remains could get misplaced or lost. Like, I would think that there would be kind of a documented inventory of What's in the museum and where it all is. So why weren't these remains accounted for when the museum first returned? Moved remains back in 2021.
Rachel Watkins: first of all, I have to start well beyond the University of Pennsylvania and the Penn Museum and return to the very history of biological anthropology, of scientific racism and how, you know, this is a field of investigation that was built upon constructing hierarchies and boundaries around humanity,. And those people who were considered to fall outside the margins are the ones whose bodies were most likely to be used for experimentation, examination. and so the practice of collecting the remains of these people was an entrenched practice within the field.
Rachel Watkins: And so because this was such a naturalized part of the field many institutions, many museums amassed many, you know, many skeletons.
And it was also a practice to have a small number of people, if not an individual, being in charge of these collections. And so it goes without saying that because of that, you know, one person is not going to or a small number of people are not necessarily going to be able to manage or maintain or properly document um, the collections that are in their care. Nor was that frankly a priority.
Um, So fast forward, you know, history is is very much so part of the present. So fast forward, you have museums and institutions in the process of, of reckoning with the role that they played in the amassing of these bodies and conducting the inventories and establishing policies around research and return as part of it. And so that's what we're we're doing here, as is the case with so many other places.
Felix Poon: Yeah. No, I think about a lot of these museum collections, and they were gathered in large part in the 19th and early 20th centuries, which feels like, you know, that was a long time ago.
but with the move remains, that kind of came into the museum in the 1980s and then was even used, um in an online class video as late as 2020. Um, it feels almost like. Well, well, wait, this stuff kind of still happens. Like this. Um, legacy is still very much present, you know? So, so is is that, like, is that kind of a mistaken assumption to think that like, oh, we're we're, we're we don't we don't do those things anymore.
Rachel Watkins: Absolutely not. It's not incorrect. I mean, and that is part of the reason why the, um, you know, when the remains of, uh, Katricia and Delicia were found, it was, for many people, a turning point. And it was a moment of reckoning for the field and led to the kind of widespread reexamination of ethical practices and historical practices around scientific racism, because indeed, that legacy does still remain.
And the point is that very particular structures and practices and policies have to be put in place to correct that history. It can't just be done with goodwill or good intentions. And so that's why it's really important for leadership and institutions and museums to commit to putting together teams of people and working with those folks to, um, right, to course. Correct. And so I'm really happy, frankly, to be at a place that where that commitment is being lived out.
Felix Poon: Can the public trust that the museum doesn't still have even more MOVE remains?
Rachel Watkins: I will answer that very carefully and say that the process of inventory that we are conducting now yielded the remains that were said to have been in the museum. Um, and that weren't found previously. So, you know, that's an indication that the system is working. Um, so if there is anything else to be found, it will be found.
And with that said, based on the documentation and institutional memory, there should not be any other remains there.
[MUX]
<<MIDROLL>>
Felix Poon: Welcome back to Outside/In. Let’s jump right back into the conversation with biological anthropologist, Rachel Watkins, who started as the new curator of the biological anthropology section of the Penn Museum this year.
Felix Poon: Rachel, you started your job at the museum not too long ago. In fact, your position was created when the museum first apologized for the Morton cranial collection and promised to repatriate that collection. So essentially, you were hired to help with doing this reparative work in the biological anthropology section. So I'm wondering, how has it been for you coming into this role at the museum?
Rachel Watkins: Well, there are a lot of feelings that I have about it. Um, I've talked in other podcasts and interviews about my roots in the lower Manhattan, New York African Burial Ground project, where 30 years ago, many of the issues that are coming up now were not only engaged, but addressed by way of a very unique approach to community engagement, etc. so that's where I, for all intents and purposes, cut my teeth in the field. So I feel very much so built for the work that I'm doing. Yeah.
So, um, you know, and I think there's there's something to be said for a group of folks being in place. You know, the, the team that has been most recently hired. I think the person who's been in place the longest, the collections manager, has been here for six months. And we have we've uncovered right, these remains and that that can now be returned. So I mean, I think that again, the system is working and that really bodes well for, um, for what we have going on here. So I'm really enjoying it and really grateful to be working with the team here.
Felix Poon: Mhm. Um, so in our reporting in the What Remains series, we heard members of Finding Ceremony say that the museum, the Penn Museum, is not up to the task to do the work of repatriation responsibly. Um, how would you respond to that?
Rachel Watkins: I would respond by saying that museums and other institutions must get if they are not up to the task, they must get up to the task. So if we're talking about thousands and thousands of people's remains, these are not things that can be easily turned over to folks. I just mentioned that there's this long history of museums and other institutions not have holding, conducting proper inventories of the remains that are in their care.
So that process has to take place so that people can be properly identified so that they can be returned, so that the memorialization and the restorative practices can take place. So I see it as a, as a both and um, and I see that as something that is. Yeah, I see that as part of the restorative process.
Felix Poon: Yeah. Where do you even start trying to tackle something of this size and scope? Because, you know, the Morton Collection, over a thousand skulls. Beyond the Morton collection, there's over 10,000 human remains at the Penn Museum. Um, that's a lot of remains. So how does one begin? You know, doing that work?
Rachel Watkins: Yeah. You asked the question. You used the. You said, how does one. And that's the key. It's not one, right? It's a team of people. And, um, what I, what I like about, um, what's being modeled at at our museum, at least, is that there have been hires on multiple levels. There are personnel and support for those personnel in place to do repatriation within and outside of Nagpra.
Um, it takes a very intentional, you know, placement of people at the different levels and, um, and points of intersection of this work for it to be done well and to be done sustainably.
Felix Poon: Yeah. So what are the museum's plans for repatriation moving forward? You know, as we said, it's promised to repatriate the Morton Skulls, but the museum still holds over 10,000 human remains in its other collections. What is the plan for repatriation?
Rachel Watkins: So the plan is after there's a another level of inventory
identifying, um, you know, records, uh, archival records and things that can be used to confirm.
who we need to contact to proceed with returns and with engagement. That’s another important part of it, so…
Rachel Watkins: I think that we'll have more definitive information on that after we do this inventory or after we complete it, because it's happening now. So I think we'll have you can you can stay tuned. We'll be able to follow up on that after that hard work is done.
Felix Poon: Yeah. speaking of engagement, you know, in the statement about the latest move remains, the museum said it's centering the wishes of descendant communities regarding the treatment of human remains in the Penn Museum's care.
But as we heard in our What Remains series, critics of the Penn Museum say that the interment of black Philadelphians earlier this year was not done with proper descendant community consultation. And so I'm wondering, going forward, can we expect a different process of engaging with descendant communities for future repatriations.
Rachel Watkins: Yeah, and again, that's something that is already in process.
But yes, there is a broader approach to community engagement, and I think it's important to keep in mind that community engagement is something that is really complex, because there's an assumption that there's just one, that there's one community, right? And there are multiple. And it can take time for institutions to identify, you know, the different facets of the community to engage. So that's why it's really important to have a commitment to course correction built in so that if you come to understand that you need to broaden your reach, you do that, you admit that and you do that. And so that's what's happening now.
Felix Poon: Yeah. And so will the museum be engaging with finding ceremony any differently?
Rachel Watkins: Well I mean, as I understand it, there's already been engagement with finding ceremony that that's been ongoing, and it's likely that that will continue.
[MUX IN]
Felix Poon: Rachel Watkins is a biological anthropologist and curator at the Penn Museum. Rachel, thank you so much for your time.
Rachel Watkins: Yeah. Thank you so much.
Felix Poon: By the way…after we finished the interview, Rachel emailed me to elaborate on her response to that last question. You might remember from our series, that Finding Ceremony is a group that believes the Penn Museum should not have any direct involvement in repatriation; and that instead, they should hand over all of the remains to them, and pay them to do that work instead.
Rachel’s response to that in her email was, quote, “museums should not be able to get away with handing off these mammoth-sized messes they helped create without putting in reparative work. Furthermore, I do not believe that holding museums accountable and following descendants’ wishes have to be mutually exclusive enterprises. I think that the sheer volume of ancestral remains, sacred objects and artifacts held in museums necessitate their involvement in repair,” end quote.
All three episodes of our What Remains mini-series are available now on the Outside/In feed, wherever you get your podcasts. You can also head over to our website to learn more: outsideinradio.org.
<<CREDITS>>
Felix Poon: This episode was reported and produced by me, Felix Poon. It was edited by Taylor Quimby.
Nate Hegyi is the host of Outside/In. Our team also includes Justine Paradis, Marina Henke, and Kate Dario.
Taylor Quimby is our executive producer. Rebecca Lavoie is NHPR’s Director of On-Demand Audio.
Felix Poon: Music in this episode is from Lennon Hutton, and Blue Dot Sessions.
Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio.