Margaret Burnham

{{Infobox officeholder

| name = Margaret Burnham

| office = Member of the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Review Board

| term_start = April 5, 2022

| status = Incumbent

| nominator = Joe Biden

| predecessor = Position created

| birth_date = {{birth date and age|December 28, 1944}}

| relations = Louis E. Burnham (father)
Linda Burnham (sister)
Charles Burnham (brother)

| birth_place = Birmingham, Alabama, U.S.

| education = Tougaloo College (BA)
University of Pennsylvania (LLB)

}}

Margaret A. Burnham (born December 28, 1944) is an American lawyer, University Distinguished Professor of Law at the Northeastern University School of Law, founder of the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project, and co-founder of the Burnham-Nobles Digital Archive.{{Cite web |title=About the Burnham-Nobles Digital Archive |url=https://crrjarchive.org/archive |website=The Burnham-Nobles Digital Archive}} Burnham is also the Faculty Co-Director for Northeastern Law's Center for Law, Equity and Race (CLEAR).{{Cite web |title=The Center for Law, Equity and Race at Northeastern University |url=https://law.northeastern.edu/academics/centers/clear/ |website=Northeastern University School of Law, Center for Law, Equity and Race}} She is a Senate-confirmed nominee to be a member of the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Review Board.

Early life and education

Burnham was born in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1944. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from Tougaloo College and a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Pennsylvania Law School.{{Cite web |title=Margaret Burnham's Biography |url=https://www.thehistorymakers.org/biography/margaret-burnham |access-date=2022-03-07 |website=The HistoryMakers |language=en}}

Career

Burnham's legal practice included serving as an attorney with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

In 1970, Burnham worked with CPUSA lawyer John Abt to defend Angela Davis, her friend since childhood, and later wrote the foreword to Abt's memoir.

{{cite book

|last1=Abt

|first1=John

|last2=Myerson

|first2=Michael

|title=Advocate and Activist: Memoirs of an American Communist Lawyer

|publisher=University of Illinois Press

|year=1993

|location=Urbana, Illinois

|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9REaIPPh4k4C

|pages = 78 (Amalgamated), 273 (Angela Davis)

|isbn= 9780252020308 }}

In 1977, she became the first female African-American judge in Massachusetts, serving as an Associate Justice of the Boston Municipal Court until 1982.{{cite web |url= http://www.longroadtojustice.org/topics/leadership/margaret-burnham.php |publisher=The Massachusetts Historical Society |title= The Honorable Margaret A. Burnham |accessdate= 2020-09-18}}

In 2008, she was one of the lawyers in a landmark federal lawsuit against Franklin County, Mississippi for their law-enforcement agents' involvement in the 1964 Ku Klux Klan kidnapping, torture and killing of two 19-year-olds, Henry Dee and Charles Eddie Moore.{{Cite web|url=https://www.northeastern.edu/law/faculty/directory/burnham.html|publisher=Northeastern University School of Law |title=Faculty Directory: Margaret A. Burnham|access-date=2016-10-02}}

On June 11, 2021, President Joe Biden nominated Burnham to be a member of the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Review Board.{{cite web |title=President Biden Announces Seven Key Nominations |url=https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/06/11/president-biden-announces-seven-key-nominations/ |website=The White House |date=11 June 2021 |access-date=7 March 2022}} The Senate's Homeland Security committee held hearings on Burnham's nomination on January 13, 2022. The committee favorably reported her nomination on February 2, 2022. Burnham was officially confirmed by the entire Senate via voice vote on February 17, 2022.{{cite web |title=PN717 — Margaret A. Burnham — Civil Rights Cold Case Records Review Board 117th Congress (2021-2022) |url=https://www.congress.gov/nomination/117th-congress/717?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22burnham%22%2C%22burnham%22%5D%7D&s=2&r=2 |website=US Congress | date=17 February 2022 |access-date=7 March 2022}}

Burnham has authored and coauthored numerous articles;{{cite web |title=au="Burnham, Margaret A." |url=https://www.worldcat.org/search?q=au=%22Burnham,%20Margaret%20A.%22 |website=WorldCat |publisher=OCLC |access-date=30 September 2022}} and one book, By Hands Now Known: Jim Crow’s Legal Executioners,{{cite book |last1=Burnham |first1=Margaret A. |title=By Hands Now Known: Jim Crow's Legal Executioners |date=2022 |publisher=W.W. Norton & Company |location=New York |isbn=9780393867855 | oclc = 1344393958 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9N9hEAAAQBAJ |access-date=30 September 2022}} which examines the history of racialized lethal violence during the Jim Crow era. By Hands Now Known received positive reviews in The New York Times{{cite news |last1=Szalai |first1=Jennifer |author1-link=Jennifer Szalai |date=September 21, 2022 |title=Jim Crow's Forgotten History of Homicides |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/21/books/review/by-hands-now-known-margaret-burnham.html |access-date=30 September 2022 |work=New York Times}} and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for History in 2022.{{Cite web |last= |last2= |last3= |date=2023-04-22 |title=Los Angeles Times Book Prizes winners announced |url=https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2023-04-21/los-angeles-times-book-prizes-winners-announced |access-date=2023-04-26 |website=Los Angeles Times |language=en-US}} It has also won the 2023 Hillman Prize for Book Journalism, and The Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. By Hands Now Known was also a finalist for the 2022 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction, and has been named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker, Oprah Daily, Kirkus Reviews, Chicago Public Library, and Publishers Weekly.{{Cite web |title=By Hands Now Known wins The Hurston/Wright Legacy Award |url=https://crrj.org/efforts/by-hands-now-known-wins-the-hurston-wright-legacy-award/ |website=CRRJ}}

Personal life

Burnham's father was Louis E. Burnham, an activist and journalist. Her sister, Linda Burnham, is also an activist and journalist. Her brother, Charles Burnham, is a violinist and composer. She is also related to Forbes Burnham, the second president of Guyana.{{Cite web |date=2002-03-01 |title=Schomburg Library honors Burnham |url=https://peoplesworld.org/article/schomburg-library-honors-burnham/ |access-date=2022-03-07 |website=People's World |language=en-US}}