Linda Mann Joins CRRJ as Executive Director

08.14.20 — Linda Mann has joined Northeastern Law’s Civil Rights and Restorative Justice (CRRJ) Project as executive director.

Mann holds a PhD in Education Policy from George Mason University. In 2018, she was awarded a research fellowship with Columbia University’s Institute for the Study of Human Rights (ISHR). Following her fellowship, Mann continued to work for ISHR establishing a US African American Redress Network in collaboration with Howard University. Mann also served as director of clinical experiences at Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia. Mann’s research focuses on the analysis of historical injustices and contemporary reparations based on the voices of those wronged to determine their restorative justice potential. Mann previously worked for the Georgetown Memory Project and the American Educational Research Association. She is a veteran educator, a conflict resolution specialist and a 20+ year grass-roots organizer.

“I am honored to join the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project at Northeastern University’s School of Law,” said Mann. “CRRJ is the national leader in investigating and archiving historical acts of racial terror from the 1930s-1970s and pursuing efforts of restorative justice. Working alongside founder Margaret Burnham and Associate Director Rose Zoltek-Jick will be a true privilege.”

About the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice (CRRJ) Project

The Civil Rights and Restorative Justice (CRRJ) Project, founded by University Distinguished Professor Margaret Burnham, addresses harms resulting from the massive breakdown in law enforcement in the South from 1930 through 1970. This was a time of great political protest and turmoil as African Americans and their allies militantly rejected Jim Crow, second-class citizenship and economic exploitation.

CRRJ conducts research into the nature and extent of anti-civil rights violence and works with members of a diverse community – prosecutors, lawmakers, victims – that is seeking genuine reconciliation through legal proceedings, law reform and private investigations. CRRJ works with these groups to assess and develop a range of policy approaches, including criminal prosecutions, truth and reconciliation proceedings, and legislative remedies. On the research front, CRRJ’s work aims to develop reliable data with which to analyze events of anti-civil rights violence and to support research into the history and current significance of anti-civil rights violence.

The two components of CRRJ’s program are research and remediation. Scholars from a range of disciplines – including law, criminal justice, history, sociology, and political science – are engaged in CRRJ’s empirical research, the main program of which is compiling and analyzing information about anti-civil rights harms  The research program also encompasses CRRJ’s work on cold Civil Rights-era cases. The remediation program assesses and supports policy measures to redress the harms, including prosecution, truth and reconciliation proceedings, state pardons and apologies by state and private entities who bear responsibility for the harms.