CLEAR Hosts Summer Guest Lecture Series

The Center for Law, Equity and Race's Summer Series featured learning sessions with Deborah A. Jackson, CLEAR managing director, and Raymond Wilkes, senior staff attorney with Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project. Jackson and Wilkes shared their professional experiences in local government, community organizing and genealogical research.

CLEAR Hosts Summer Guest Lecture Series
Dr. Deborah A. Jackson

09.15.2025 — In July, Northeastern Law’s Center for Law, Equity and Race (CLEAR) hosted two lunch time learning sessions. Dr. Deborah A. Jackson, CLEAR Managing Director, and Raymond Wilkes, the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project’s (CRRJ) Senior Staff Attorney, shared their previous professional experiences in a variety of fields, including local government, community organizing and genealogical research.

Jackson kick-started the series on July 2, with a fascinating discussion of her journey from attorney to Mayor of Lithonia, Georgia, culminating with her appointment at CLEAR in May 2022.

Before serving as CLEAR’s first managing director, Jackson previously spent three decades practicing municipal and community development law in Georgia, New Jersey and Mississippi. Her first foray into politics came after serving Lithonia as the city attorney, then as a city council member, before being elected mayor in 2012.

Of her many achievements during two full terms as mayor, Jackson spoke about the redevelopment of a dilapidated strip mall into a $12 million 75-unit housing project, establishing the Lithonia Farmers Market to address the city’s “food desert” status, and completing an award-winning housing inventory with the Atlanta Regional Commission. In 2020, Jackson ran for a seat in the U.S. Senate after a special election was called, coming second among Georgia’s Democratic candidates and earning more than 300,000 votes state-wide.

Wilkes, a former CRRJ Clinic student whose connection with the project began in 2015, led the second discussion on July 16, presenting his work at Harvard’s Slavery Remembrance Project.

Graduating with his JD from NYU in May 2023, Wilkes became a research fellow at the Harvard initiative, launched by the university’s President Larry Bacow in 2019. The project was designed to understand and address the enduring legacy of slavery at Harvard. Wilke’s role included identifying and verifying enslavers who were also Harvard faculty, staff or leadership. The project successfully identified over 900 enslaved individuals and over 400 living descendants with connections to Harvard, but was disbanded at the beginning of 2025, its staff laid off and all research outsourced to American Ancestors, a genealogical nonprofit.

These insightful sessions demonstrated the multi-faceted backgrounds and professional expertise of CLEAR’s staff, highlighting the wealth of knowledge and lived experience both Jackson and Wilkes bring to the center.

About Northeastern University School of Law

The nation’s leader in experiential legal education since 1968, Northeastern University School of Law offers the longest-running, most extensive experience-based legal education program in the country. Northeastern guarantees its students unparalleled practical legal work experiences through its signature Cooperative Legal Education Program. More than 1,100 employers worldwide in a wide range of legal, government, nonprofit and business organizations participate in the program. With a focus on social justice and innovation, Northeastern University School of Law blends theory and practice, providing students with a unique set of skills and experiences to successfully practice law.

For more information, contact [email protected].