Burnham, a resident of Jamaica Plain, will coordinate the research and writing. She will conduct research on the legal landscape relevant to the legacies of slavery from 1940 to 2020. Burnham is Distinguished University Professor at Northeastern, where she teaches law and Africana Studies, focusing on civil rights law, history and practice. Burnham served as a judge and civil rights attorney in Boston. Her book, By Hands Now Known: Jim Crow’s Legal Executioners (2022) won numerous awards, including the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Zora Neal Hurston/Richard Wright Prize, and the Sidney Hillman Prize for excellent social justice investigation. She was recognized by the Massachusetts Humanities Counsel in 2023 for her “dedication to exploring history, illuminating truth and confronting injustice. . .”. Burnham holds a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a BA (History) from Tougaloo College.