General information
The Civil Rights and Restorative Justice (CRRJ) Archive is a database of the CRRJ project’s research on incidents of racially motivated violence targeting African Americans in the Jim Crow South between the years 1930-1955, the people known to be involved in these incidents, and the supporting documents referencing these events and individuals. Digital versions of those documents are stored within Northeastern University’s Digital Repository, and are organized and published via the Archive. The CRRJ Archive site includes ways for you to browse each of these different entity records, and also ways to search for specific people, incidents, or documents. You can also read about how this information has been gathered and edited, and about how you can make use of it.
People
To explore the records about people—both victims and alleged perpetrators/other named individuals—choose person from the Record type facet on the Search page to get started with a full list. From here there are several different things you can do:
- You can narrow down the list of records by selecting from the list of facets on the left.
- To view fuller information about an individual person, click on the person’s name: this will take you to a page for that person.
Incidents
To explore the records about incidents of racial violence, click incident from the Record type facet on the Search page to get started with a full list. You can also start out by searching for specific incidents (see Searching, below). From the full Incidents list there are several different things you can do:
- You can narrow down the list of records by selecting from the list of facets on the left.
- To view fuller information about an individual incident, click on the incident name: this will take you to a page for that incident
In the full page record for each incident, you’ll find a short description of the incident, as well as some specific information about it including the name of the victim (if known), the date and location of the incident, the allegation against the victim, and information about the legal findings. You’ll also find links to records for any people associated with the incident (both victims and alleged perpetrators) and any documents related to the incident, such as death certificates, coroner’s records, newspaper coverage, and similar materials. Using these links, you can navigate within the body of materials for a specific incident, and also discover connections between incidents (for instance, multiple incidents by the same alleged perpetrator).
Documents
To explore the records about specific documents, click document from the Record type facet on the Search page to get started with a full list. From here there are several different things you can do:
- You can narrow down the list of records by selecting from the list of facets on the left.
- To view fuller information about an individual document, click on the document name: this will take you to a page for that document.
In the full page record for each document, you’ll find an image of the document, as well as some specific information about it including the title, creator, date created, document genre, and other useful data. In order to view the full document, you will need to follow a link out to the Northeastern University Library's Digital Repository Service. Some documents are available to the public, while others are restricted to Northeastern University affiliates.
You’ll also find links to records for any victims or incidents associated with the document, and information about how to use and cite the document. For full information about what each field means, you can consult the CRRJ Data Dictionary , which is also linked from that page.
Searching
You can search the CRRJ Archive using the search box on the home page, or visiting the Search page by clicking on ‘Search’ in the main navigation menu (which is accessible from anywhere on the site). The search will operate across all Archive records (of people, incidents, and document metadata) but not the full text of the documents themselves. The specific fields being searched include:
- People: their full name (including alternate names and variants), occupation, and details of military service.
- Incidents: the case abstract, the alleged offense, and the city, county and state names associated with the location.
- Documents: the title, creator name, publisher, and organizational record number.
You can learn more about the possible values for these fields in the Data Dictionary.
You can use the facets displayed on the left side of the screen to narrow and refine your search. Within a specific type of record (for instance, People), when you click an individual facet (for instance, a specific race or occupation sector) the result set will display only the records matching your chosen facet. If you click multiple facets, the results will include only the records that match all of the facets. Including more facets will narrow your search results. Facets you apply to one type of record (for instance, People) do not carry over into the tabs for the other types of record (for instance, Incidents or Documents). For full information about what each facet means, you can consult the CRRJ data dictionary , which is also linked from that page.
Data
If you are a registered user and have logged into the CRRJ Archive site, you can download the full CRRJ Archive data set. This data set includes all metadata records for people, incidents, and documents. Each set of records is represented as a comma-separated (CSV) data set. Images of people and documents are not included in the data set. The data set is shared under a CC-BY-ND-NC license . For more information about how you can use and cite this data, please visit our How to Cite page.
Supporting information
There are several places you can go to get information about the CRRJ Archive site and about the data that supports it. The Data Dictionary provides a full list of the data fields for each type of record (People, Incidents, and Documents), and explains what they mean. This is a great place to look for clarification about specific fields, but it’s also a way to learn more about the kinds of data the CRRJ is gathering.
The Methodology section of the CRRJ Archive site offers detailed information about how the project is framed and how the CRRJ team does their work. You can read about the scope of the project, the kinds of sources it draws on, and the research process the team follows to discover and verify the details of each case. You can also learn more about teaching with the CRRJ Archive.
Our Policies page provides information about site policies, including our take-down policy for documents, our copyright statement, and our policies on user data privacy and permitted usage of CRRJ data.
Our How to Cite page provides information on the different kinds of materials published in the CRRJ Archive, and how to use and cite them.
You can also read more about the CRRJ project itself and its many other activities at the CRRJ site.
When things aren’t working as you expect
The CRRJ Archive is in ongoing development and we will be adding new features during the course of the coming months. Here are a few tips concerning specific issues you may encounter.
- The home screen displays a click-through user acknowledgment, which you need to click on to access the site. If you have a content blocker installed in your browser, you may not see this pop-up message. Instead, the home page might appear greyed out, and you will not be able to navigate within the site. To fix this problem, disable your content blocker and reload the page.
- Once you have accepted the user agreement, the site will use a cookie to remember your acceptance, and will not prompt you again until you log out, quit your browser, or delete session cookies. If you block all cookies, you will be prompted to click on the user agreement each time you open the site in a new page.
