Historical Redress

The clinic’s mission is to help communities in the US engage with historical injustices in order to deepen the inquiry into structural racism and inequality. We work with families who have lost relatives to lynching and other forms of racial violence during the Jim Crow era. In collaboration with practicing lawyers, professional archivists and historians, students track down materials from government repositories; conduct interviews; and, where feasible, visit the region where the events took place. Applying tools and insights from the fields of restorative justice and transitional justice, law students work closely with families and local communities to memorialize these past events and to draw connections with the present dialogue over systemic racism in the US. Journalism students take advantage of the publication prospects these narratives provide. The Clinic offers pro bono support, including research and design expertise, to governmental and community-driven projects, such as truth commissions and reparations initiatives, that are meant to address past racial harms. We engage varied strategies to help communities analyze the past to focus attention on present-day remedies for entrenched racial inequality.