Algorithms of Resistance:  Using OCR and AI for Social Justice

1. Abstract

This long presentation will share key findings from the final report of On the Books: Jim Crow and Algorithms of Resistance, a Mellon-funded Collections as Data project using machine learning to systematically discover racism within North Carolina laws. The project will make North Carolina legal history accessible to researchers by creating a corpus of over one hundred years of North Carolina public, private, and local session laws and resolutions from the end of civil war through the civil rights movement (1865-1968). This project represents the intersection of many subject areas including critical race theory, American history, text and data mining, machine learning, and public humanities. It will be of interest to subject specialists, data science researchers, educators, librarians, and other information professionals.