A pivotal moment in the national dialogue on reparative justice took place at Mills College at Northeastern University during a two-day conference, Towards Justice: Addressing Racial Violence, Advancing Legal Clarity, and Restoring Community. National leaders in the reparations movement joined experts and advocates in the field on February 27-28, 2025.

On day one of the conference, Northeastern University School of Law’s Center for Law, Equity and Race (CLEAR) Managing Director Dr. Deborah A. Jackson introduced the hundreds of attendees, present in the historic Mills Hall, on Northeastern’s Oakland campus, and online, to the Federal Reparations: Lynching and Racial Violence Project.

Initiated by CRRJ’s Reparations Lab, and thereafter implemented by CRRJ and CLEAR, the federal reparations project aims to explore how the federal government can address harms associated with racial violence that are, in part, attributable to its failure to fulfill its law enforcement responsibilities in the years from 1885 to 1965.

“The lingering, multidimensional traces of historical racial violence have impeded our Nation’s efforts to overcome past racial subordination and conflict,” said Burnham. “This initiative provides us with a meaningful opportunity to re-examine and redress these atrocities.”

Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley met with CRRJ staff and faculty, as her and her office takes on the task of reigniting interest in and riding co-sponsors for H.R. 40, and reparations broadly.

Congresswoman Pressley (D-MA-07) traveled to meet with the CRRJ in-person in Boston, accompanied by her Deputy District Director Eddie Rupia, and Press Secretary Avery Manousos. She met with members of CRRJ including Directors Margaret Burnham and Rose Zoltek-Jick, and CRRJ Staff Attorney and Program Director, Alex Stein. Pressley’s visit to CRRJ was the first stop as her and her team spend the coming weeks meeting with community members, advocacy groups, and entities like CRRJ as they relaunch the campaign for H.R.40.

On December 3, the fall 2024 cohort of Burnham-Nobles Digital Archive (BNDA) undergraduate student researchers showcased their semester-long investigations to CRRJ staff and faculty. The culmination of their groundbreaking research, five students presented their contributions to the (BNDA) reflected on the significance of their research, and provided insights into the broader historical and social context surrounding the cases that they investigated.

“Our undergraduates bring unique insights from their respective fields, including politics, philosophy, economics, history, culture studies, law, and public health,” said Lydia Beal, CRRJ’s Research Associate who led this student group in their investigations. “Together, their contributions ensure these cases are visible and accessible through the archive.”

The Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project was joined at the end of 2024 by Aimee Clesi, CRRJ visiting researcher and Rhodes Scholar (Balliol College, University of Oxford '22). Studying for her doctoral degree in Criminology and Criminal Justice, Clesi spent five weeks researching cases for CRRJ's posthumous exonerations project.

Professor Margaret Burnham, director of the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project (CRRJ) gave the keynote address at "Legacies of Lynching: An Inaugural Gathering," Saturday, March 1, 2025.

Burnham discussed how the United States’ legacy of lynching has impeded our Nation’s efforts to overcome past racial subordination and conflict. She described ten principles or guidelines that, she asserted, are common to the work of remembrance coalitions and similar projects focused on racist terror and historical injustice.

CRRJ hosted two guest speakers from the Chicago-based attorney's office, People's Law Office. Attorneys Flint Taylor and Brad Thomson spoke with CRRJ Clinic students about using civil rights lawsuits to advance racial justice, particularly in cases involving police violence.

This summer, CRRJ will, once again, host several upper-level students from universities across the country, engaging them in unique research opportunities and exploring the intersection of historical violence and the law.

As in previous years, this program is designed to give students supervised practical experience related to their interests in racial redress and reconciliation. Committed to working 30-hours a week, these students will be tasked with developing individual case investigations, examining cases of racially motivated homicides during the Jim Crow period, as well as a collaborative group project.

Neely’s tragic death at the hands of a private citizen — acting out of a sense of public duty or not — is a familiar story, one told many times in the Burnham-Nobles Digital Archive in the cases of racially-motivated homicide on public conveyances in the Jim Crow South.

Throughout the twentieth century, white vigilantism was a real and threat to African Americans in public spaces. The archive contains many cases in which private citizens felt empowered to violently police Black behavior, some acting with probable cause but many without.

In December 2024, the Department of Justice (DOJ) released a report stating the Memphis police department uses excessive force against Black people and “regularly violates” their civil rights. The DOJ’s findings marked six months of federal investigation into the Memphis Police Department’s methods and practices, following the death of Tyre Nichols in 2023.

The history of racial discrimination, the denial of Black civil rights, and the use of excessive force within the MPD can be traced far earlier than the death of Nichols. This most recent high-profile police killing is the outcome of decades of impunity enjoyed by police who have ended Black lives without suffering any legal consequences.