SOCI 291 - Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project Intensive

0.5 unit(s)

As a student in the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project Intensive, you engage with the work of The Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project (CRRJ) at Northeastern University School of Law in Boston, Massachusetts. CRRJ conducts research and supports policy initiatives on anti-civil rights violence in the United States and other miscarriages of justice during the period 1930-1970. The CRRJ Burnham-Nobles Archive is a repository that contains cases on racially motivated homicides in the former Confederate states.

This course asks you to participate in an academic seminar for the Fall semester and conduct case research contributing to the CRRJ Burnham-Nobles Archive in the Spring semester.

SOCI 291 – Fall Semester

1) The academic seminar contextualizes the state of Alabama in terms of legal, historical, and theoretical material to help support and contextualize the work of the CRRJ case research. You visit Northeastern University School of Law to familiarize the students with the archive, receive their cases, audit law classes and talk with law students.

SOCI 292 - Spring Semester

2) You investigate CRRJ racially motivated murders of African Americans in the state of Alabama from 1930-1970. CRRJ Northeastern Law students have completed the preliminary findings and you are asked to continue case research. You have access to some law school classes, with the permission of the instructor during the break times that you are on campus and you present your findings to members of the faculty at Vassar or at Northeastern Law School.

3) You identify living relatives of the victim and coordinate interviews with them to supplement your understanding of the underlying events. Moreover, you initiate a relationship with the family and other parties of interest to explore the prospects of designing and implementing a restorative justice initiative for those who were impacted by the homicide.

4) You travel to both Northeastern University School of Law for three site visits during your Fall, Winter and Spring breaks and once to Alabama for research purposes, meeting with families and/or coordinating restorative justice efforts.

Your work helps CRRJ finalize its research on pending cases and helps situate CRRJ as an exemplar of the burgeoning potential of archival research which helps move restorative justice forward.

Prerequisite(s): Prior participation in an Introduction to Sociology, Africana Studies or American Studies course or permission of the instructor; Interest in social justice, law or journalism; An ability to work independently as well as in a group.

Not offered in 2021/22.

Course Format: INT