Partner with us ↓

Building new ways to understand and confront violence.

Explore Areas Of Work

Take Me There ↓

Join us at the Kelly Miller Smith Convocation

RSVP ↗

We are here to understand violence, produce agents who confront it, and cultivate peace, justice, and civil discourse through research, policy and practice.

The Justice Propulsion Lab is based at Fisk University and rooted in the Southern Black Belt. We bring students, scholars, institutions, and communities together to move knowledge toward action.

Our catalyst to new knowledge and action

VOCATION

VOICE

VIOLENCE

Areas Of Work

Research, policy, and practice work together to move knowledge into action.

RESEARCH

Evidence for a more just world.

JPL develops culturally grounded research that expands how violence is understood, experienced, documented, and confronted. Research is a foundation for policy development, public discourse, civic engagement, and community action.

OUR RESEARCH AGENDA

Corporal punishment & school discipline
Investigating the structures, histories, policies, places, and lived experiences that shape violence.
Violence in the Southern Black Belt
Exploring how violence is experienced, understood, remembered, and reproduced through cultural and place-based inquiry.
Conflict transformation & civil discourse
Developing culturally competent frameworks that recognize identity, history, power, and lived experience.

Grounded in people. Designed for action.

Community-informed and interdisciplinary research, with students participating in inquiry, analysis, and documentation. Our methods include qualitative research, ethnography, interviews, focus groups, and oral histories.

Build a research partnership ↓

POLICY

From evidence to systems change.

JPL uses research and practice to inform policy thinking, critique, dialogue, and action. We help communities, institutions, and decision-makers understand the systems shaping violence and the possibilities for changing them.

POLICY FOCUS AREAS

Schools & education
School discipline, corporal punishment, and education policy.
Violence & public safety
Violence recognition, prevention and intervention, public safety, and criminal justice.
Participation & public systems
Civic participation, community conflict, mediation, and the institutional systems shaping lived experiences of violence.

Evidence first. Community informed.

We analyze laws and systems, develop community-informed recommendations, and translate research into civic education, public deliberation, policy communications, and institutional action.

Collaborate on policy ↓

PRACTICE

Practice is JPL in motion.

Research and policy encounter people, institutions, and everyday life through direct engagement, training, facilitation, civic participation, storytelling, and experiential learning.

HOW WE ACTIVATE

Conflict transformation & dialogue
Culturally informed approaches to conflict, mediation, civil discourse, and dispute resolution.
Simulations & teach-ins
Hands-on civic learning and portable public education in schools, churches, universities, and community spaces.
Community engagement
Participatory experiences where residents share knowledge and work through public questions together.
Storytelling & public programs
Testimony, media, convenings, and creative projects that connect evidence with lived experience.

Learn. Practice. Become an agent.

Justice Propulsion Agents build the skills, confidence, language, and agency to engage conflict, systems, and public life—and turn knowledge into action.

Bring JPL into your community ↓

Partner with us.

JPL partners with institutions, communities, funders, researchers, educators, policymakers, and practitioners who believe that confronting violence requires more than one discipline, one sector, or one solution.

Fund the work.

Invest in research, student development, public programming, infrastructure, and expansion.

Start a conversation ↓

Build with us.

Develop research initiatives, educational experiences, policy projects, community programs, and new models for practice.

Connect ↓

Bring your expertise.

Contribute data, subject-matter knowledge, networks, mentorship, and institutional capacity.

Connect ↓

Create a platform.

Host JPL programs, conversations, simulations, trainings, and public experiences.

Connect ↓

Expand the discourse.

Help bring JPL’s questions, research, and methods to communities throughout the Southern Black Belt and beyond.

Connect ↓

LET’S CONNECT

Let’s build
together.

Bring your time. Your talent. Your treasure. Your questions. Tell us how you would like to connect with JPL.

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.