We sponsor dynamic interdisciplinary research, foster new pedagogies, and support remedial practice on the national and community level.
Launched in 2007 by University Distinguished Professor Margaret Burnham and now directed by Professors Burnham and Rose Zoltek-Jick. CRRJ supports the academic and teaching projects of scholars within and beyond Northeastern University, and the restorative justice efforts in communities to honor this history.
In 2022, CRRJ launched the Burnham-Nobles Digital Archive, a joint project with MIT Chancellor Melissa Nobles. The archive is one of the most comprehensive digital records of racial homicides collected to date, and home to more than 1,000 case files. It is an invaluable resource for examining the extensive scale of killings in the Jim Crow South, from 1930 to 1954, offering users the opportunity to learn how violence affected people’s lives, defined legal rights and shaped politics during the Jim Crow era.
CRRJ and the Center for Law, Equity and Race
Established in November 2021 as a new Center of Excellence at the Northeastern University School of Law, the Center for Law, Equity and Race (CLEAR) was created to strengthen and expand the phenomenal work of the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project.
CLEAR aims to explore new ways to address the continuing challenges of racial injustice and social inequities, using the frameworks of innovative pedagogy, theoretical research, public policy development, and academic and community collaborations.
Under the leadership of Margaret Burnham, CRRJ has been the Nation’s leading and pioneer academic center in the expanding field of historical injustice.
CLEAR will support this work, and expand its research and pedagogical agenda.
Staff
Associate Director
Senior Advisor
Malcolm Clarke
ELIZABETH ZITRIN JUSTICE FELLOW
Olivia Strange
Elizabeth Zitrin Justice Fellow
Communications specialist
Advisors
Ifetayo Belle ‘10
Senior Staff Attorney
School Justice Project
Janeen Blake ’09
Sr. Director
Legal Counsel at Takeda
Tasmin Din ’10
Attorney
Morningside Technology Advisory LLC
Tara Dunn ‘17
Litigator
Todd & Weld LLP
Bayliss Fiddiman
Director of Educational Equity, Senior Counsel, National Women’s Law Center
Hon. Geraldine Hines
Associate Justice (Ret.)
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Professor of Law, Northeastern University
Mary Nguyen ‘14
Assistant Attorney General
Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office
Melissa Nobles
Chancellor
Professor, Political Science Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Rashida Richardson ’11
Professor of law, Northeastern university
Kaylie Simon ‘11
Deputy Public Defender
Contra Costa County, CA
Honorary Advisors
Rita L. Bender
Skellenger Bender P.S.
Fania Davis
Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director,
Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth
David J. Dennis
Algebra Project
Robert P. Moses
Algebra Project
Charles Ogletree Jr.
Jesse Climenko Professor of Law (Ret.)
Harvard Law School
Ruby Sales
Spirithouse Project
Hollis Watkins
Southern Echo
Affiliates
Northeastern University
· · ·
Professor of Journalism
Associate Professor of Communications Studies
Professor of Journalism
College of Social Sciences and Humanities
· · ·
Associate Professor of English and Africana Studies
Professor of Practice in Criminology and Criminal Justice
Professor of Africana Studies, History, and Digital Humanities
· · ·
Director, NuLawLab
Creative Director, Nulawlab and Stable Ground Boston
Professor of Law
Snell Library
· · ·
Digital Metadata & Ingest Supv, Digital Production Services
Digital Scholarship Developer, Digital Scholarship Group
Digital Production Coordinator, Digital Production Services
Head, Archives and Special Collections and University Archivist
Associate Director for Systems, Digital Scholarship Group
Project Archivist, Archives and Special Collections
Data Engineer, Digital Scholarship Group
Associate Director, Digital Scholarship Group and Digital Humanities Librarian
Head, Digital Production Services
Southern University Law Center
John Pierre
Chancellor
Ada Goodly
Research Collaborators
Jeffrey Adler
Professor of History
University of FLorida
David Cunningham
PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY
WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY AT ST. LOUIS
Shytierra Gaston
PROFESSOR OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE & CRIMINOLOGY
GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY
Diane Harriford
PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY
VASSAR COLLEGE
Jennifer Llewellyn
PROFESSOR OF LAW
DALHOUSIE UNIVERSITY
Monica Martinez
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF HISTORY
UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS, AUSTIN
Margaret M. Russell
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF LAW
SANTA CLARA UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW
Geoff Ward
Professor of African and African-American Studies
Washington University at St. Louis
Nan Elizabeth Woodruff
Professor of History (Ret.)
Pennsylvania State University
CRRJ Staff News and Updates
University of Buffalo publishes profile on Burnham-Nobles archivist, Gina Nortonsmith
The Burnham-Nobles Digital Archive, a record collection and database documenting racially motivated violence targeting African Americans in the Jim Crow South, was recently established, thanks in part to GSE alumna Gina Nortonsmith’s expertise, guidance and leadership.
CLEAR responds to guilty plea in Tyre Nichols case
Dr. Deborah A. Jackson, Managing Director of the Center for Law, Equity and Race at Northeastern University School of Law, responds to guilty plea by ex-Memphis police officer, Desmond Mills Jr. in the case of Tyre Nichols, fatally injured by officers on January 7, 2023.
By Hands Now Known wins The Hurston/Wright Legacy Award
CRRJ Director Professor Margaret Burnham has won The Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, for her latest book, By Hands Now Known: Jim Crow’s Legal Executioners. She received the award at a ceremony in Washington D.C. hosted by the Zora Neale Hurston-Richard Wright Foundation, on October 26, 2023.
Center for Law, Equity and Race welcomes 2023-2024 Faculty Fellows
The Center for Law, Equity and Race (CLEAR), welcomes four new Faculty Fellows. Zinaida Miller, Caleb Gayle, Adam Omar Hosein and Kris Manjapra will participate in the 2023-2024 fellowship. Gayle, Hosein and Manjapra will complete projects that will directly help to inform CRRJ’s reparative justice programs.
CLEAR’s program co-ordinator featured in Boston Globe NAACP convention retrospective
Charlotte Mathews-Nelson, program co-ordinator for Northeastern Law School’s Center for Law, Equity and Race (CLEAR), was featured in an article published by the Boston Globe that looked back on 1982 NAACP Convention, the last time…
Senate confirmed CRRJ Director Margaret Burnham’s nomination to the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Review Board
The US Senate confirmed Margaret Burnham, founder and director of CRRJ, as a member of the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Review Board on February 17, 2022. Burnham was confirmed to the board…
Support
Our work is supported by individual donors and grants from The Carnegie Corporation, the Zitrin Foundation of San Francisco, The Ford Foundation, the Andrew Mellon Foundation, and Northeastern University. Individual donations support our students’ field work.
