This project follows a number of counties in Georgia and Florida, selected for instances of documented racial violence including lynchings, sundown towns, and other communities targeted by white supremacist violence. After these counties were chosen, archival documents were used to find out more about the known instances of racial violence and dive deeper into the history, potentially finding instances that weren’t immediately apparent. The information gleaned from the archives is turned into a timeline of racial and systemic violence in the region, giving a picture of the progression and stories that lie within.
Once researchers have a timeline with all the documented information they find, researchers visit relevant sites to conduct ethnographic research and engage in participant observation, for example the Stone Mountain monument, or places likely to have additional information like museums or historical societies. They document their experience of the site, the other people there and how they interacted with the site, and the presentation of the history.
During archival research and participant observation, names of key figures emerge. These people could be academics who have studied the topic, victims of racial violence, descendants of victims, or they could be community leaders that may know people the researchers may have missed otherwise. PIs and Graduate students conduct the interviews, using a semi-structured format and photo elicitation or walking interviews when possible to best understand the perspective of the interviewee. These interviews are transcribed and analyzed for important information and common themes.
In this project, racial violence refers to a direct action or set of actions with intent to hurt, injure, damage, or kill based on the victims perceived race or ethnicity.
An event, not a process, examples of violence with bodily harm could include lynchings, imprisonment, or medical malpractice, while violence with non-bodily consequences could include cross burnings, vandalism, and economic damages.
Racialized violence refers to structural or systemic actions that enforce and create racial hierarchy. Rather than being a specific event, racialized violence can take the form of public policy, business practices, and legal precedent.
A system or process, examples of racialized violence include voter suppression, funding disparities for schools, hiring discrimination, and biased medical care.
In this project, resistance refers to conscious efforts, whether formal or informal, to thwart attempts at subjugation.
Resistance takes many forms but can look like protests, art, self-defense, or community building and solidarity.
In this project, reconciliation means attempts to restore or rebuild relations between groups of people, while reparations are symbolic or material offerings as compensation for violence or abuse of rights in the past. Reconciliation can include reparations, but does not always.
Reparations are often understood to be solely a financial compensation, but definitionally include memorial plaques or monuments, investment in correcting institutional issues, or safeguards to prevent similar damages in the future.
Reparations and reconciliation are often viewed differently by the different groups involved. Additionally not all reparations are actually helpful, nor are all reconciliation attempts successful.
This United Nations document outlines principles of adequate reparations.