On June 21, 2025, CRRJ joined a citywide memorial in Memphis honoring lives taken by the Memphis Police Department, cases dating from the Jim Crow era to the present.

Following the leadership of the families and communities directly impacted by this violence, CRRJ’s Research Associate, Lydia Beal, travelled to Memphis, Georgia, to support efforts to honor those lost, recover buried histories, and call for accountability.

In 2024, the Department of Justice released the findings of their investigation into the Memphis Police Department, declaring that the MPD engages in a pattern of unconstitutional and racially discriminatory policing. This inspired the commemoration on the Saturday following Juneteenth, in Memphis, at the Harriet Performing Arts Center, which drew more than 100 participants throughout the day.

The event was made possible by a coalition of Memphis-based collaborators, local relatives of victims, and community creatives. The Philip Hatley Foundation led by descendants Daryle Hatley, Solomon Hatley, and Tiara Hatley, supported the memorial’s development and centered the legacy of Phillip Hatley, while creating space for intergenerational healing for the broader community. Black Lives Matter Grassroots Memphis, led by Jennifer Cain, organized efforts to hold MPD accountable for its legacy of lethal violence. The Lynching Sites Project of Memphis, represented by Board President Jasper St. Bernard, focuses on racial violence memorials and advancing truth-telling about Shelby County’s history. The Civil Wrongs podcast, led by Laura Kebede-Twumasi, Distinguished Journalist in Residence at the Institute for Public Service Reporting at the University of Memphis, helped guide the planning and execution of the event while documenting and amplifying its impact. Say Their Names Monuments, directed by Ashley McKenzie, who began the project after the loss of her son Jaylin McKenzie, provided logistical guidance and space for remembrance for those impacted by police violence.

“From the outset, our goals were clear; to honor those killed by MPD, to center the voices of their families and descendants, and to prompt a public reckoning with the enduring legacy of anti-Black policing in the city,” said Beal.

Our collaborative efforts allowed us to build a shared, accessible narrative that directly confronted impunity and affirmed the dignity of those harmed.”

Beal traveled to Memphis with Elena Kuran ’25 a student from CRRJ’s Spring 2024 Clinic. Kuran conducted the investigation into the 1939 killing of Phillip Hatley by two MPD during the Clinic. Beal and Kuran helped install 22 temporary monuments, each honoring a life taken by police officers, at the Arts Center. These included CRRJ cases like Phillip Hatley and Fred Davis, as well as dozens of others documented in the Version 2 update to the Burnham-Nobles Digital Archive. Each monument was accompanied by archival materials curated by CRRJ, including protest letters and documentation from the Archive.

Launched in 2022, the Burnham-Nobles Digital Archive is one of the most comprehensive digital databases of racially motivated killings of Black people in the Jim Crow South. This latest expansion, released in July 2025, introduces 290 new victims and more than 5,000 new documents to the Archive, collected through CRRJ’s investigative processes and student clinic. Version 2 also extends the Archive’s geographic scope beyond the 11 former confederate states, and now features cases from 13 additional states, including Maryland, Kentucky, and West Virginia, as well as Washington DC.