Documents related to the 1945 killing of Hattie DeBardelaben, a 46-year-old Black mother and grandmother whose case was investigated by Northeastern Law’s Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project (CRRJ), were made publicly available in November as the first set of records released by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) under the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Collection Act. These records are also available through CRRJ’s Burnham-Nobles Digital Archive.

“This marks an important moment in the movement to learn about — and learn from — the atrocities of the Jim Crow era,” said Professor Margaret Burnham, who directs CRRJ and was appointed by President Biden to the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Review Board in 2022. “Rendering federal records widely available will make it possible to teach from this material, fully integrate this history in our national narrative and better assist the families and communities that bear the weight of these past harms.”