Civil Rights and Restorative Justice
The Civil Rights and Restorative Justice (CRRJ) Project, founded by Professor Margaret Burnham, addresses harms resulting from the massive breakdown in law enforcement during the civil rights movement, from the 1950s to the early 1970s. This was a time of great political protest and turmoil as African-Americans and their allies militantly rejected Jim Crow, second-class citizenship, and economic exploitation.
Their protests were greeted with systemic violence and repression. Thousands were arrested and imprisoned, hundreds were murdered and beaten, and untold numbers lost their jobs, their churches, and their homes. These crimes against the civil rights movement were committed by institutions, organized groups, individuals acting alone, and by government actors, often colluding with private persons. Rarely were the perpetrators of these violations prosecuted in court or otherwise made to answer for their offenses.
CRRJ's aim is to investigate the role of state, local and federal law enforcement agencies and courts in protecting activists and their work. CRRJ examines the geo-politics that led to the large-scale breakdown of law enforcement, the wide-spread repression against the movement's participants, and the reforms that have been initiated to rectify these abuses. The project engages teachers and students across the university and is directed by faculty from the School of Law and the College of Criminal Justice.
Events
“The Race Beat: Then and Now”
a talk with Pulitzer Prize winning author Hank Klibanoff
Wednesday, October 7, 2009, 6:00 - 7:30 p.m.
230 Dockser Hall, 65 Forsyth Street
The Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project (CRRJ) invites you to a talk by Pulitzer Prize winning author and journalist Hank Klibanoff. With Gene Roberts, Klibanoff authored The Race Beat, winning a Pulitzer for the work in 2007. Klibanoff, former managing editor of the Atlanta Constitution and a distinguished journalist (with a successful stint at the Boston Globe), is currently managing editor of the Cold Case Truth and Justice Project.
As he describes it, "this multimedia, multi-partner project uses investigative reporting to dig out the truth behind unsolved racial murders that took place during the modern civil rights era in the South. The project, led by the Center for Investigative Reporting, is using professional reporters, documentary filmmakers, multimedia experts, public interest advocacy groups and lawyers to fill in history's huge gaps, to correct its myths and to bring exposure, reconciliation and, where possible, criminal prosecution." Klibanoff, a long-time resident of Atlanta, is working on a Corporation for Public Broadcasting-funded treatment for a four-part documentary series on unsolved civil rights murders.
Joining Hank Klibanoff will be Judy Richardson, award-winning filmmaker (Eyes on the Prize, American Experience's Malcolm X Make it Plain), educator, and lifelong social and civil rights activist. Richardson was a staff member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) for three years in the early 1960s. Richardson will show a clip from her newest documentary, "Scarred Justice: The Orangeburg Massacre 1968." Described as a "powerful antidote to historical amnesia," the film has won wide acclaim.
Professor Margaret Burnham, director of CRRJ, will moderate.
The Northeastern University Law Forum, the School of Journalism and the Northeastern University Libraries are cosponsoring the event. Refreshments will be served.
For more information: crrj@neu.edu
