Federal Reparations Project

Redress for Homicidal Racial Violence

Project Summary

The Federal Reparations Project, housed at the Civil Rights & Restorative Justice Project at Northeastern University School of Law, addresses the call to redress the federal government’s failure to protect the victims of lynching and other forms of homicidal racial violence during the Jim Crow era. The project examines how and why federal authorities failed to enforce laws that were designed to protect the constitutional rights of these crime victims. The project covers incidents from 1885 to 1965.

Background

The Reconstruction amendments and subsequent legislation unequivocally established a federal duty to protect the constitutional rights of all citizens. This body of law empowered the federal government to prosecute both government officials and private actors who violate civil rights. Despite such clear legal authority, available records reveal a systematic failure to enforce civil rights protections in cases of racial violence.

The records housed in the Burnham Nobles Digital Archive reveal that the federal government enacted a policy of non-intervention in the face of widespread constitutional and statutory violations. The Department of Justice (DOJ) failed to pursue or to direct the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to conduct thorough investigations into incidents of homicidal racial violence. When investigations did occur, they were frequently perfunctory and incomplete. The DOJ declined to prosecute perpetrators, even where evidence warranted action. This pattern and policy of inaction constituted a fundamental breach of the federal government's moral and legal obligations to its citizens—an abdication of duty that allowed racial terror to persist for decades with impunity.

The categories of cases illustrating these law enforcement failures include:

Massacres and Mass Casualty Events: Large-scale racial killings occurred over hours or days, targeting minority communities and resulting in multiple deaths. Federal authorities failed to prevent them or prosecute the perpetrators.
Lynching: Thousands of racially motivated lynchings took place from 1885 to 1965. The DOJ took fewer than ten lynching incidents to trial.
Military-Related Killings: The government failed to protect Black soldiers from racial violence on and off the base during the World War II. The War Department turned a blind eye to its obligation to intervene, investigate, and ensure proper prosecution of the perpetrators.
Prosecutors' Obstruction of Justice: Segregationist local federal prosecutors in the South undermined law enforcement efforts.
Repeat Killers: Federal authorities failed to intervene, properly investigate, or prosecute local law enforcement officers who committed multiple racial homicides.

Grounds for Repair

While the U.S. Senate apologized to the victims of lynching in 2005, this measure falls short of repairing the harm to the victims’ families.

The federal government has an established precedent of reparatory compensation for historical harms experienced by specific groups.

Descendant and Community Organizations

This project works in collaboration with the Legacy Coalition and other descendant community-based groups. Founded by a descendant of a racial terror lynching, the Legacy Coalition seeks to secure reparative justice for families whose ancestors were victims of racial terror acts during the Jim Crow era.

To support the Federal Reparations Project, please contact:

Raymond Wilkes: [email protected]

Margaret Burnham: [email protected]