On June 13, 2026, the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project, the Strickland family, and other community partners will gather to dedicate a historical marker honoring Denna and Estella Strickland in the Mount Calvary Baptist Church cemetery, confronting an enduring pattern of racial terror carried out by deputized white citizens in Coweta County, forcing public recognition of a long-suppressed act of racial violence.
The Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project (CRRJ) at Northeastern University School of Law held its annual Spring Clinic Grand Rounds on April 15 and 16 of this year.
On March 30, 2026, esteemed civil rights attorney Flint Taylor of the Chicago-based People’s Law Office (PLO) and Tayleece Paul, an associate in the office, gave a talk, sponsored by CRRJ, to the law school community. Taylor, a founding partner of the PLO, took his audience on a journey across his remarkable career in civil rights litigation.
Eleanor Rush, age 18, was killed by prison guards in Raleigh, North Carolina in 1956, as she protested the condones of her incarceration. This March 2026, Women’s History Month, we share Rush’s story, following the release of federal records by the Cold Case Civil Rights Records Review Board last month, and the publication of an article in The Assembly featuring her tragic case.
In partnership with the Innocence Project, CRRJ secured a declaration of innocence for Tommy Lee Walker, wrongfully executed for murder in Dallas, TX, in 1956.
Seventy years after his execution, CRRJ’s investigation leads Dallas County to acknowledge grave injustice in Tommy Lee Walker’s killing.
The Netflix documentary The Perfect Neighbor opens with police bodycam footage racing through the dark streets of Ocala, Florida, toward a tragedy that has already occurred. By the time officers arrive, Ajike “AJ” Owens, a…
This directed study introduces students to the fundamentals of civil rights litigation as a remedy for police and jail misconduct under Section 1983. Students examine the dockets of litigated cases to sharpen practical skills in fact development…
This is an advanced seminar on race, policing, and the criminal justice system. It explores the phenomenon of police violence directed at racially marginalized communities in the US; considers historical and ongoing opposition to racialized policing; and…
How the 2017 Kimbrough scholarship program shaped one student’s path to Northeastern University School of Law.
Civil Wrongs Season 6 now available, centers case of Phillip Hatley, killed in 1939.
Tayo Belle ’10 reflects on her transformative experience as one of the first students to work with Professor Margaret Burnham, founder and director of the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project (CRRJ) and the origins of what would become CRRJ’s spring Clinic.
The Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project launched Version 2 of the Burnham-Nobles Digital Archive. Here are six cases, now publicly available in the Archive, the first time that some of these accounts have ever been shared.
This summer, several interns joined the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project (CRRJ) to support projects and expand our research.
Raymond Wilkes first participated in the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Clinic at Southern University a decade ago. Now he’s back at Northeastern University as CRRJ’s Senior Staff Attorney.
Typically, each clinic student receives a docket of about five cases. They pursue each case until either further research is not possible, or the semester ends.
Cases are typically sourced from a combination of newspaper records, the records of civil rights advocacy groups, federal records from the Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the War Department.CRRJ’s staff…
Cases that have been researched in the clinic move from classroom study to long term stewardship. We reconcile the evidentiary record and prepare materials for permanent preservation to advance redress efforts. We preserve clinic case files in the Burnham-Nobles Digital Archive. The…
