Marie Louise was a lifetime New Orleans who died of malnutrition. Hiram Malone came to Louisiana from Alabama and at the age of 21, suffering from fatal pneumonia. Samuel Prince is a 40-year-old chef who succumbed to tuberculosis.

They were one of 19 black patients who died in a New Orleans hospital in the 1870s, and doctors sent their heads to Germany. There, the skull was studied as a "specimen" and was the proliferation pseudoscience of pseudoscience at the time. It is alleged to be the link between someone’s intelligence or morality and the size or shape of the skull, and some doctors make the superiority of one race more than another.

More than a century abroad, the skulls of the 19 patients have now been repatriated to Louisiana. On Saturday, they were respected in the Multifaith Memorial and rested at the jazz funeral rooted in New Orleans traditions.

"We can't exactly where we come from. So here, we have them. What are we going to do?" said Eva Baham, a historian at Dillard University who leads the Cultural Repatriation Commission during Saturday's service. "You might be angry. You might be frustrated. But we can't stay there."

The remains are returned by the University of Leipzig, which contacted urban archaeologists in New Orleans in 2023, acknowledging that the skulls were obtained in "colonial context and immorality." The two-year return process involves cities, states and academic institutions. It eventually led to a famous international restoration, returning African-American remains from Europe – many still lingering in archive collections of museums and universities in the United States and abroad.

Researchers believe many of the 19 were enslaved, later moved freely after the Civil War, eventually becoming ill or institutionalized in asylum, and then landed at a charity hospital in New Orleans. It is one of the oldest hospitals in the United States, serving the poor in the city for centuries. It was closed due to damage from Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Hospital death records helped Baham’s team reconstruct biographical moments of 13 men and 4 women. The two people are unknown.

In Saturday’s memorial, a group of Dillard students read from these biography, ending with the return trip:

"Another voyage across the Atlantic Ocean passed the bones of enslaved Africans under the sea," the student's account said. "From Africa to the Caribbean, to the United States, from New Orleans, Louisiana to Leipzig, Germany; from Leipzig, Germany to New Orleans, Louisiana, justice carries homes of 19 men and women.

Saturday’s ceremony included prayers from ten religious leaders of different faiths, African drums and dance performances brought attendees out of the church. Handlers in white gloves carry memorial boats with skulls. The parade accompanied the jazz band.

Baham said during the memorial: “The lives of these people make sense.