Social Justice

Library Staff Work with CRRJ to Investigate and Make Accessible 1,000 Records of Racial Homicides in Jim Crow South in New Burnham-Nobles Archive

Last week’s release of the Burnham-Nobles Digital Archive by the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project (CRRJ) was a culmination of years of work by both the Northeastern University School of Law and by the Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections.

Black and white image of a Black man wearing a hat and sitting on an old car. Text on the photo reads "Caleb "Picky Pie" Hill 28 Son, Brother, Father, Husband, Irvington Georgia"
Library staff have worked to digitize photos and records of racially motivated homicides in the Jim Crow South, like that of Caleb Hill, Jr., who was murdered by two white men in Georgia in 1949, with the help of local police. The killers were not indicted.

The archive, a comprehensive collection of 1,000 racial homicides that took place in the Jim Crow South between 1930 and 1954, will serve as a tool to shed light on the scope of racial murders during this time frame, their mishandling by local police and authorities, and their effect on the law and politics. It can be found at crrjarchive.org.

The project is the result of 15 years of work, with hundreds of students gathering 20,000 pieces of evidence — items like death certificates, press clippings, law enforcement files, reports from civil rights groups, photographs, and personal stories.

Led by Project Archivist Gina Nortonsmith, staff from the Library’s Archives and Special Collections, Digital Production Services, and Digital Scholarship Group then worked tirelessly to take that raw data and make it searchable, digitizing and cataloging it so that researchers can quickly gather information as they study specific cases or the general trend of anti-Black violence in the Jim Crow south.

“This is one of the most important projects that the Northeastern University Library has been involved with, and I’m proud of the many staff members who have helped to build this essential archive that documents a tragic, unsettling period in America’s history,” said Dan Cohen, Dean of the Library.

The Burnham-Nobles Digital Archive is part of the larger Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project, whose aim is to educate the public about historical anti-Black racial violence and failures of the criminal justice system, as well as to investigate those cases in which proper justice has not been served. It was founded by Northeastern University Law Professor Margaret Burnham, who serves as its director and recently published the book By Hands Now Known: Jim Crow’s Legal Executioners.

Restoring Agency with Subject Analysis: Daniela Saunders and the Freedom House Inc. Collection

The Freedom House digitization project has been an ongoing effort to make the archival records of the Freedom House Inc. Records available through the Digital Repository Service (DRS). Initially begun as a photograph-focused endeavor in 2007, the project has expanded to the print records of the collection with the aim to make broadly accessible the documentary evidence of Freedom House’s activities in community activism and urban renewal in Roxbury during the mid-to-late 20th century.

Introduction
Part of the digitization process includes the creation of metadata for each record so that people can find an individual item with the sea of documents. Metadata is the identifying information of a record, such as its title, author, creation date, and other components.

Recently, archivists have placed greater emphasis on the subject heading aspect of cataloging records.1 Archivists now recognize that the creation of subjects and descriptions as access points to a record is an inherently biased activity that can influence how one approaches and perceives the record itself and the topics it contains. While these access points are extremely helpful in improving search results, these pathways are created by archivists, i.e. people. Since archivists create metadata, the data reflects our perspectives, thereby making it imperative that we be mindfully aware of our unconscious biases. We must do the necessary self-evaluative work about ourselves, the power dynamics in which we function, and the multifarious impacts of our decisions on various groups.

Records are created within certain settings for certain purposes—whether political or social—and an archivist inserts the meta-narrative layer of collecting and making accessible those records. There is power in that process and traditionally the process has privileged dominant social systems, which then reinforces social inequities. The myth of neutrality in subject cataloging has led to subject headings that can reinforce biases, stereotypes, and offensive representations, as well as misrepresent and alienate marginalized communities. For instance, a reclassification project at GBH recognized the negative false equivalence of police only interacting with criminals in their legacy subject term “Law Enforcement & Crimes,” which they have changed to “Legal System.”2

Recently, many archivists have risen to the challenge of acknowledging the persistency of power dynamics and are actively seeking to infuse their metadata creation with inclusion, diversity, and social justice practices. I myself have recently undertaken the ethical reasoning behind the use of certain subject headings to achieve descriptions that not only increase searchability and accuracy but also are respectful and empowering to subjects previously ignored. It is my hope that by developing cultural competency, the records will be more accessible to the communities reflected in their content, which may be one small step towards actively dismantling oppressive systems.

The Collection and Daniela Saunders
As I digitized the Freedom House Inc. Records, I stumbled upon an eye-opening folder about the Police-Community Relations Committee. The records from this folder of items from 1960 to 1966 document a growing awareness in Roxbury of police-community relation issues. At the time, there were community memories of problems and instances a decade prior. Back in 1952, the murder of Rabbi Zuber sparked meetings calling for community action. However, the initial uproar dwindled and while close relations and neighbors continued to fight for change, it was a small endeavor.

Scanned image of a paper reading: "Co-operating Organizations: International Association of Chiefs of Police, Massachusetts Police Chiefs Association, Massachusetts Department of Probation, Massachusetts Youth Service Board, Massachusetts Department of Correction, Boston College Law School, Northeastern Region, National Conference of Christian and Jews. Purpose: The basic purpose of the Institute is to help improve communication between police and community leaders through the discussion of problems of concern to police, other law enforcement agencies, and public and private community agencies. Specifically, the TALKS AND DISCUSSION WILL BE IN THE AREAS OF HUMAN RELATIONS PROBLEMS, POPULATION CHANGES, JUVENILE-ADULT RELATIONSHIPS, THE POLICE ROLE, THE ROLE OF COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS, AND IN RELATED AREAS.
Mission statement from “Program of Police – Community Relations Institute with notes about National Conference of Christians and Jews police – community relations, March 29 and 30, 1960.” February 29, 1968. Freedom House Inc. records (M16_B030_F1015_004) Northeastern University Library Archives and Special Collections Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts Box 30, Folder 1015

Some larger efforts did persist, including a Police-Community Relations Institute Conference held in 1960 that connected with religious organizations to discuss the relations between mass media, social work agencies, the judicial court system, civil rights, legislation, and the police. However, the improvements called for in the decade of discussions did not become sweeping real-world improvements. As a result, over the course of a year between the summers of 1962 and 1963, there were a number of stranglings of women in the greater Boston area.3

On January 5, 1963, 16-year-old Daniela Saunders was murdered in an alleyway between Warren Street and Elm Hill Park, just a few blocks from her home. The next day, 500 members of her community met with Otto P. Snowden and Freedom House to discuss what underlying social problems led to the tragedy. Initiated by a small group of mothers voicing the need to prevent such violence, the meeting expanded to the 500-person turnout. Many individuals voiced their perspectives on the issue:

  • Dewey Duckett outlined the general disinterest of the Boston Police Department Division 9 towards the community it was supposed to protect. He talked about how “the local police had clearly evidenced an incapacity to understand or respect either the local citizens themselves or their simple desire for minimal adequate protection.”4
  • Attorney Benjamin Johnson called for the creation of a 100-person auxiliary police of community members.
  • Mrs. Leona Tynes cited the practical issue of poor lighting facilities.
  • Mrs. Oswald Jordan recalled the aftermath of Rabbi Zuber’s murder and described the emotional toll of these types of meetings over the last decade since they had not led to any actual change.

At the end of the meeting, the goal was set to create a committee to meet with city officials, namely Commissioner Edmund L. McNamara, Captain Paul Sullivan, and Sergeant Kelly of Division 9. The other four main suggestions were to add foot patrolmen; ensure that police answered complaints with courtesy instead of their current lack of sensitivity; increase the effort to improve problem areas; and fire police that demonstrated bias towards the black community.

Scanned image of a report that reads: As a result of all of the foregoing, the following suggestions were made: 1. That foot patrolmen be assigned to certain designated trouble spots in the area such as: Warren St., Humboldt Ave., Blue Hill Ave., Grove Hall and Seaver Street. 2. That police take steps to clean up known areas of houses of ill repute and illicit operation. 3. That the police commissioner order policemen to answer citizens' complaints promptly and courteously. 4. No policeman be retained on the force who fails to accord Negroes the same prompt, courteous protection which is due all citizens of Boston. The people were specifically concerned with the attitude of the police toward the Negro citizens of Roxbury and their laxity in the performance of their duty. Four of the many cases presented which graphically illustrate these concerns will be cited now. The meeting adjourned at 11:50 p.m.
Suggestions from “Report from special community meeting about police issues, Daniela Saunders and Rabbi Zuber murders, and race relations held January 6, 1963.” January 6, 1963. Freedom House Inc. records (M16) Northeastern University Library Archives and Special Collections Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts Box 30, Folder 1015

Another meeting held January 8, 1962, at the Jeremiah E. Burke School further expanded the four main issues. About 1,500 citizens gathered to demand change. Kenneth Guscott, representing the NAACP, called for a Villante Committee similar to what the Peace Corps created in Harlem. Police Commissioner McNamara personally attended this meeting, although he was met with objections when he attempted to downplay his former neglect by referring to his personal connection with a black member of the police force.

The various efforts aimed to “promote a better understanding between the protected and the protector.”5 The end goal was a positive coordinated action program formulated and carried out by neighborhood associations in affiliation with the local police. Along with Mayor John F. Collins and Commissioner McNamara’s immediate pledges to increase training in criminal investigation and compulsory attendance of courses at Northwest University and the FBI National Academy, the events led to long-term communication between the Roxbury community, city officials, and the police. The Freedom House Inc. Records reflect and display these sustained efforts.

Two scanned pages of a document reading: Outline on Various Phases of Police Activities I. REASON - The need for a singular approach to a singular, many faceted problem of law enforcement, calling for the concerted efforts on the part of the many City departments, to bring about a coordinated action program as viewed by the man on the scene. II. PURPOSE - To contribute towards the above-mentioned coordinated action program, in outline form, positive constructive suggestions with an accent on the POSITIVE approach, rather than via negative destructive criticism. III. GOAL - A New Look Program IV. OBJECTIVE - Through a smooth cohesive combined movement of various City Departments in conjunction with the Police Department, to come forth with plans insured of maximum efficiency with a minimum amount of expenditures on the part of those involved. A. Coordination EXAMPLE NO. 1: Fire Dept. with Police Dept. a. Reduce number of false alarms; by pinpointing the trouble areas, operational City costs will be lowered, as each fire alarm, false or otherwise, costs the City approximately $600. EXAMPLE NO. 2: Sanitation Dept. with Police Dept. a. Law enforcement (A tow-way street). Strict enforcement of the sanitation laws; picking up all complaints of littering, improper disposal of trash from windows into lots or backyards and so forth. (In this way, the police will get to know the people he is dealing with; whether poor and law-abiding or poor, without regard for law and order). EXAMPLE NO. 3: Police Dept. with Social Agencies (UCS) a. Referral reports to be made where repeated calls complaining of disorderly conduct, and the like, bring the patrolman into family groups where it is very obvious that the home environment is so out of line as to very definitely evidence its adverse effects in the conduct, attitude, attire and educational status of the numerous children therein. This would also include where there was pointed neglect in the feeding, housing and guidance of these unfortunate youngsters, and where there was physical and mental distress of one kind or another. b. A short Referral form would put this case immediately under investigation of a social agency who will then endeavor to educate and guide the faulty member. c. This kind of follow through between the Police and the Social Agency would, in a definite way, meet the need on the home base, of preventative medicine in areas of juvenile delinquency, tuberculosis, etc. B. Cooperation - People and the Police Dept. a. Volunteer Police 1.) Strengthen the Auxiliary Police Branch, enlist more volunteer police. Recruitment requests to be made under advisement. C. Police Structure a. Expand subordinate levels of command 1.) Form a fine network for all trouble areas, starting right from the blocks to the streets, from the streets to the neighborhood, from there to the areas from areas to districts, from then on up to the precincts. (Auxiliary assistance.) 2.) Inspectors - A systematic step to insure the effectivity of a program of this type is through periodic inspection. If the crime rate has increased in one section, the responsible person, whether on a block level, or street, neighborhood, area, district or precinct, pinpoints the location and troubleshooters give a 24-hour kind of watch--he cleans up, makes his referral reports to said responsible person who does the same right on up to the man in the station under whom he falls. The total summation is then given to the head man--the Captain. This in no way changes the structure as it now stands but rather it puts subordinate authority under certain officers as appointed by the Captain of the station; this delegation of authority gives added strength to police operations, it means a sorting out of the problem that should be in the field of Sanitation Authorities, a Social Agency, Domestic Court, Truancy Dept. and irons out the hopeful method
Pages from “Outline on various phases of police activities.” April 28, 1964. Freedom House Inc. records (M16) Northeastern University Library Archives and Special Collections Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts Box 30, Folder 1015
Scanned newspaper photo of Daniela Saunders with the caption reading: DANIELA M. SAUNDERS, 16, MURDER VICTIM Suffered Terrifying Death in Dark Roxbury Alley
Photograph from “Photocopy of newspaper article, Neighbors of slain girl hit lack of cops.” (Boston Record American), January 7, 1963. Freedom House Inc. records (M16) Northeastern University Library Archives and Special Collections Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts Box 30, Folder 1015

Daniela Saunders’ Impact
The events of Daniela Saunders’ murder and the aftermath from Roxbury’s community response are integral components to the larger historic narrative of the police-community relations documented in the Freedom House Inc. Records. Her story may be limited to a folder in this vast collection but her impact disseminates through many boxes. So many activities were initiated by her tragic demise.

However, most metadata elements do not provide space for Daniela. She wasn’t the author or creator of the records, she was not included in the title of the records, and her name was often eliminated in the documents themselves. Within the records of Folder 1015, Daniela was more of a ghost, a whisper, trickled throughout the newspaper articles, letters, meeting minutes, and reports. She may have been the impetus for change, but she didn’t have agency in these metadata components.

Additionally, in the larger historic narrative, Daniela has been forgotten. She is currently not listed as one of the Boston Strangler’s 13 victims despite the connection to the “Phantom Strangler” made in 1963.6

Scanned image of a newspaper article reading: "Responsibility for the death of Daniela Saunders lies on the shoulders of every Roxbury resident. For it can be truly said that she is dead because she lived in Roxbury.
Quote from Kenneth I. Guscott, NAACP in “Photocopy of newspaper article, Peace Corps urged to aid hub police.” 1963. Freedom House Inc. records (M16) Northeastern University Library Archives and Special Collections Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts Box 30, Folder 1015

When making the metadata for items in Folder 1015, I wanted to allow Daniela to regain her own agency in being remembered. The power of remembering is enormous—it becomes public memory and informs current events. Therefore, archival records provide an opportunity to bear witness to an event when it has been lost to time. I knew I needed a way to provide a pathway to Daniela and link her to these records. I produced these conditions by making Daniela a Name Subject Heading, a practice that we are not often implementing in the Freedom House Inc. digitization project. Due to the large scope of the collection and the logistical issues of maintaining authorized subject headings over 83 containers, Name Subject Headings for individuals are a rare occurrence.

However, with the addition of this metadata component, Daniela’s story becomes accessible to the public. She is no longer a passive victim, marginalized and obscured, but is now an active agent at the forefront of police-community relations in 1963 Roxbury. People can now find the records related to Daniela and they can situate her contribution within the larger Freedom House and Roxbury narratives.

Additionally, the records can give the public a resource for holding historical agents accountable. The 1960s were fraught with many issues between communities of color and the police nationwide. The events of 1963 in Roxbury become a part of that larger context.

Scanned newspaper photograph of Boston Police Commissioner Edmund McNamara leaning forward and listening to a large group of citizens. The caption reads: McNAMARA AND CRITIC - Boston police commissioner listens to complaint of a finger-shaking Roxbury resident while others await their turn.
Image from “Photocopy of Boston Globe article, 1000 in Roxbury jeer McNamara.” (Boston Globe), January 9, 1963. Freedom House Inc. records (M16) Northeastern University Library Archives and Special Collections Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts Box 30, Folder 1015

Finally, by recognizing Daniela and the events of 1963, I hope that the records and their metadata have an enduring impact on our current society. Police brutality, racism, abuse, systematic oppression, and unnecessary force are all topics that we see in the news every day. Past calls for better training and systematic changes to the police force are similar to present-day news stories. We are constantly exposed to the reality of this violence and our nation collectively feels an emotional toll possibly similar to the one described by Mrs. Oswald Jordan in January 1963. Maybe these historic records can help inform our present discourse. By knowing what happened in the past, maybe we can make more informed decisions, and ultimately, be the change we strive to see.

For more information about police-community relations in the 1960s, you can visit the folders on Police-Community Relations Committee, 1960-1966; Police-Community relations, 1960-1966; and Police-Community Relations Conference of the National Consortium for Continuous Improvement in Higher Education (NCCI), 1966. These folders 1015-1017 are newly available on the DRS website here.

1A non-comprehensive list of recent literature includes, Jillian Ewalt, “Toward Inclusive Description: Reparations through Community-Driven Metadata,” NEA Newsletter 46, no. 2 (April 2019): 4-7; Rosale de Mattos, “The Representation of Archival Information in Controlled Vocabularies: The Context of the Archival Institutions in Rio de Janeiro,” Knowledge Organization 47, no. 7 (2019): 548-557; Samuel J. Edge, “A Subject “Queer”-y: A Literature Review on Subject Access to LGBTIQ Materials,” Serials Librarian 75, no. 1-4 (Jul-Dec 2018): 81-90; Gracen Brilmyer, “Archival assemblages: applying disability studies’ political/relational model to archival description,” Archival Science 18, no. 2 (Jun 2018): 95-118.
2Miranda Villesvik and Raananah Sarid-Segal, “Making Metadata Inclusive to Marginalized Voices” (presentation, Archives for a Changing World, NEA Spring Conference, Virtual, March 27, 2021).
3The Boston Strangler continued to murder young women in the Boston area until 1964. For more information, see Ronald Lettieri, “Boston Strangler.” Salem Press Encyclopedia (2019); Jess Bidgood, “50 Years Later, a Break in a Boston Strangler Case,” New York Times, July 11, 2013; Paul Hoblin, Boston Strangler (Unsolved Mysteries). Abdo Publishing, 2012; Susan Kelly, The Boston Stranglers: The Public Conviction of Albert DeSalvo and the True Story of Eleven Shocking Murders. Secaucus, N.J.: Carol Pub. Group, 1995.
4“Report from special community meeting about police issues, Daniela Saunders and Rabbi Zuber murders, and race relations held January 6, 1096.” January 6, 1963. Freedom House Inc. Records (M16). Northeastern University Library. Archives and Special Collections Department. Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts. Box 30, Folder 1015.
5“Outline on various phases of police activities.” April 28, 1964. UASC identifier: M16_B030_F1015_005. Freedom House Inc. Series 3: Programs. Sub-Series B: Urban Renewal. Neighborhood Associations. Police-Community Relations Committee, 1960-1966.
6Jack Thomas, “Victims of the Boston Strangler,” The Boston Globe, July 11, 2013. https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/07/11/victims-boston-strangler/CwbsZlSNcfwmhSetpqNlhL/story.html

CRRJ Archives Helps Bring Justice to Racially Motivated Crimes

As the broader American public has recently begun seeing the social, economic, and political impact of historical injustices in the United States, one thing has become clear—we don’t all have the same understanding of the events that brought us to this place. All too often, violence has been used to enforce boundaries on where people could live, work, and exercise their right to vote. Bringing that history to light and working toward justice for the victims of violence and their communities is imperative to achieving true equality for all.

The Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project (CRRJ) at the Northeastern University School of Law does this work, conducting research and supporting policy initiatives on anti-civil rights violence in the United States and other miscarriages of justice during the period of 1930-1970.

CRRJ Website Screenshot

CRRJ has come to serve as a resource for scholars, policymakers, and organizers involved in various initiatives seeking justice for their crimes. Since its founding in 2007, CRRJ has amassed thousands of investigative records about racial violence—death certificates, police reports, and Department of Justice and NAACP files, along with their own interviews and investigative reports. Those records reflect that hidden history, and CRRJ, in partnership with the Northeastern University Library, is taking the next step toward making this historical information available and accessible to victims’ families, researchers, and journalists through the CRRJ Burnham-Nobles Archive (BNA). Containing the records of over 1,100 violent incidents, the BNA is centered on record-keeping as accountability for past racial violence and its ongoing effects today.

Burnham-Nobles Reading Room Website Screenshot

The Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project Burnham-Nobles Archive consists of two main parts: a collection of the evidentiary records compiled by law clinic investigators, and a database of information captured from those records, both provided to users on a dedicated website.

As you might imagine, such a larger project requires the work of many. I was hired as Project Archivist in February 2020 to help transition CRRJ’s case records from a collection of individual cases to an aggregation of information from which patterns might emerge—about the victims, circumstances of their deaths, and the justice systems which failed to bring alleged perpetrators to account. Based in the Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections (UASC), I work as the bridge between the legal staff of CRRJ and the staff in the Northeastern University Library. Being part of the UASC allows me to access the expertise of colleagues with experience with other collections and digital processes.

Alongside UASC, many NU library staff are directly involved in bringing the project to life. These include the staffs of Resource and Discovery Services and the Digital Scholarship Group, as well as staff in other departments who have contributed their expertise through consultations.

We began our work by looking backward and forward—what structures and information we have to work with, the collection as it exists in the Digital Repository Service (DRS) and within CRRJ, and what structures of CRRJ’s ongoing work and library structures we can construct which might support the archive in the future.

While we have many tangible successes we can point to, underlying all that we have accomplished is a genuine sense of collaboration and an approach to our work through the lens of CRRJ’s mission of justice and respect for the victims of racially motivated homicide.

In Memoriam: Julian Bond, Untiring Activist

A030588In the late evening of August 15, 2015, civil rights activist Julian Bond passed away. The journalistic coverage surrounding his death testified to his unwavering fight for a more just, socially conscious world. Bond targeted intransigent attitudes of hypocrisy and discrimination through multiple avenues – grassroots activism against Jim Crow as a co-founder of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and opposition of the Vietnam War during his run for a seat in the Georgia House of Representatives. The Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections preserves the papers of Flora Haas, a Boston activist who brought her experiences from the Civil Rights movement to bear on her advocacy for prisoners’ rights. A 1982 speech attributed to Julian Bond resides within this collection. While the circumstances of its delivery are unclear, the speech draws attention to the death penalty as another site where judgments based on race and class skew fair application of the law. Rather than exposing a history of unjust “premeditated murder by the state,” Bond commanded his audience’s attention with eyewitness testimony of an execution by electrocution. In recounting his father’s chilling encounter with an inmate named Charlie Washington, he reminded listeners then and readers now of the irreversible violence against individuals that occurs behind prison walls. His opinion of the death penalty as a moral wrong, “the product of a fallible system from which there is no appeal,” stems from his tested reading of power relations in the United States that informed all his battles for social justice. With his compassion and irrepressible energy, Julian Bond served as a model for today’s generation of social justice activists. In sharing his father’s account, he challenged all who would listen to see beyond prejudice, fear, and anger to the vulnerable yet resilient individuals seeking compassion and those protections guaranteed to them by the law. His ideas live on as points of hope for activists and the dispossessed alike.

Inspiring Social Justice Ad Contest

UNITE Northeastern & INSPIRE Social JUSTICE! Ad Contest Create a poster or (2) minute video celebrating Diversity & Inclusion Total of $350 in prizes for the best submission! Submit entries to the Office of Institutional Diversity & Equity in 125 Richards Hall no later than March 29, 2010. Criteria:     Original works of art that: ·        Demonstrate aspects of social justice, diversity and/or inclusion, which may include: disability, nationality, race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender expression, age and ancestry. Submissions Must Include: ·        Poster must be submitted on 16×11 sized paper ·        Videos must be 2 minutes in length ·        Must be submitted in both hard copy (as appropriate) and electronic format ·        Open to NU students, faculty and staff.      Sponsored in conjunction with UNITE (Unifying Northeastern Identities Through Education) For more information, check out the Office of Institutional Diversity and Equity website, or contact Sharifah Suleiman at s.suleiman@neu.edu. Download the contest flyer here.