08.01.23 — Professor Margaret Burnham will be honored with a 2023 Mass Humanities Governor’s Award, which recognizes individuals whose public actions enhance civic life in the commonwealth through a deep appreciation of the humanities. Burnham has been singled out for her “dedication to exploring history, illuminating truth and confronting injustice in order to protect civil and human rights locally, nationally and internationally.” Mass Humanities, a nonprofit foundation based in Northampton, has partnered with the Massachusetts Office of the Governor on the Governor’s Awards in the Humanities since 2014. Past awardees include: Callie Crossley, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., J. Hubie Jones, Margaret Marshall, Atul Gawande, Ellen Dunlap, Jessie Little Doe Baird and Sonia Nieto, among others. The foundation will honor Burnham and three other recipients on Thursday, September 28, 2023, at a ceremony presented in partnership with Governor Maura Healey ’98 at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston.
“Massachusetts is home to a thriving humanities sector that makes our state more enlightened, innovative and inclusive,” said Governor Healey. “I’m proud to present the Governor’s Awards in the Humanities to these four leaders in recognition of the exceptional contributions they have made in education, history, community development, philanthropy, civil rights and more. I’m also grateful to the Mass Humanities board for their partnership and the incredible work they do to expand opportunities across our state.”
Burnham is an internationally recognized expert on civil and human rights, comparative constitutional rights, and international criminal law. She is the faculty co-director of the law school’s Center for Law, Equity and Race (CLEAR) and founded and directs the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project, which investigates racial violence in the Jim Crow era and other historical failures of the criminal justice system. In 2021, President Joe Biden nominated Professor Burnham to serve as a member of the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Review Board. Her book, By Hands Now Known: Jim Crow’s Legal Executioners (W.W. Norton, 2022) has received numerous honors.
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