Our Mission

Truth + Repair: The History of Structural Racism in New Jersey is a three-year research study documenting the historical impacts of structural racism on the health and wellbeing of marginalized communities in New Jersey. Led by a team of New Jersey scholars, Truth + Repair partners graduate and undergraduate students from Princeton, Rutgers, St. Peter’s Universities, with cultural institutions in the state that produce, preserve, share, and interpret historical and archival records. Together, they develop community-engaged projects on local histories of inequality and restorative justice using qualitative and quantitative research methods. Their tasks include historical, archival, and sociological research; “triaging” personal and institutional records to identify potential research projects; digitizing existing oral histories and conducting new ones with local narrators; designing databases and maps that represent historical and current data sets to trace the impact of structural policies on health outcomes; helping graduate students and early-career scholars author peer-reviewed publications on topics in New Jersey history; and hosting conversations with local community members to discuss the findings and their implications.

Our Objectives

The primary objectives of Truth + Repair are to

• Establish a model of interdisciplinary, community-engaged research that explores the impacts of structural racism on the health of marginalized communities in New Jersey and the development of health inequities between different communities in the state.
• Explore the role of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Johnson & Johnson in the history of structural racism and health inequities in New Jersey.
• Empower students and community members to strengthen cultural institutions and organizations through community-engaged historical research.
• Engage community leaders, cultural workers, policymakers, educators, philanthropic foundations, and non-profits in the state on how to address structural racism and promote equitable health outcomes for all New Jerseyans.

Our Vision

We ultimately strive to support New Jersey’s marginalized communities and cultural institutions in crafting historically-informed, evidence-based research that informs advocacy for equitable health outcomes across the state.