Civil Rights and Restorative Justice, founded by Professor Margaret Burnham is a project of Northeastern University engaging teachers and students across the university and directed by faculty from the School of Law and the College of Criminal Justice.

The project addresses harms resulting from the massive break down 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.

In April 2007, Professor Margaret Burnham joined with colleague Charles Ogletree Jr. of Harvard Law School's Houston Institute for Race and Justice in organizing a national conference, "Crimes of the Civil Rights Era." More than 100 academics, activists, prosecutors and family members of those harmed or slain during the civil rights era came together at Northeastern and Harvard to assess the current movement to revisit and rectify these past injustices and consider the relation between this era and the racial inequities that continue to fester in the United States.

Photos: Don West