The Civil Rights and Restorative Justice clinic (CRRJ) at Northeastern University in Boston has recently expanded its Burnham-Nobles Digital Archive, one of the most comprehensive digital records of racial homicides in the Jim Crow South.
Named for founding co-directors Margaret Burnham, a university distinguished professor and director of the CRRJ at Northeastern, and Melissa Nobles, chancellor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the archive was launched in 2022 with nearly 1,000 names of African American victims of racial homicide in former Confederate states between 1930 and 1954.
Recently, the Burnham-Nobles Digital Archive added an additional 275 incidents that occurred in Maryland, Delaware, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, West Virginia, Oklahoma, and the District of Columbia. The archive now consists of over 12,000 records documenting 1,170 total incidents with 1,230 victims.
“This history is not easy to grapple with, but it is part — very much part — of American history,” said Dr. Burnham. “So we do this, not only because for those who are affected and who are still alive it is of enormous importance, but we also do this as scholars. Our job is to lift up, render visible history — important histories.”
