The Louis A. Berry Institute for Civil Rights & Justice at Southern University Law Center (SULC) held its Summer 2024 Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project (CRRJ) Internship Grand Rounds on July 14 at the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office in New Orleans, Louisiana.
This summer’s Grand Rounds marked the culmination of a two-day celebration of the tenth anniversary of SULC’s partnership with CRRJ at Northeastern University School of Law (NUSL).
During the event, SULC students RayVon Addison and Breanna Magee had the opportunity to present their detailed investigations on potentially racially motivated murders in the Jim Crow-era South before a panel of scholars and experts.
“I appreciate the opportunity to share my research with the highly respected panelists and audience,” said RayVon Addison, part-time Law Center student. “Being able to present our findings in a room of like-minded individuals was rewarding to say the least.”
Addison presented the case of Hosea Carson Vernon, who was murdered in Hinds County, Mississippi on May 23, 1936, while Magee’s presentation focused on the case of Robert Icer Ray, who was also murdered in Hinds County, Mississippi on May 12, 1952.
“The Summer 2024 CRRJ Internship was a fulfilling, yet humbling, opportunity,” said Breanna Magee, second year law student. “Investigating cases from the Jim Crow era presented great difficulties, but also shaped me into a better legal researcher.”
The audience was comprised of the Civil Rights Division at the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office.
The panelists of scholars and experts for were Margaret Burnham, CRRJ founder and director and co-director of NUSL’s Center for Law, Equity, and Race (CLEAR); Rose Zoltek-Jick, NUSL professor and CRRJ associate director; Melissa Nobles, chancellor at MIT; Raymond Wilkes, May 2018 SULC graduate, former CRRJ legal fellow and current research fellow at Harvard University; and Anwen Tormey, PhD, Emmett Till project manager, Civil Rights Division, Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office.
Upon the conclusion of Grand Rounds, the students, panelists, and the Institute were invited to discuss the students’ research and presentations with Orleans Parish District Attorney, Honorable Jason Williams and Orleans Parish Sheriff Susan Huston.
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