By Understanding Reconstruction, You Understand the United States
The fourth webinar will discuss how the tensions and cultural conflicts of Reconstruction explain the culture wars that have always shaped and defined this nation, and continue to do so today.
Streamed live on April 16, 2025
Speakers:
Daryl V. Atkinson – Co-Founder and Director, Forward Justice
Barrett Holmes Pitner – Philosopher, Journalist, Educator; Author, The Crime Without a Name: Ethnocide and the Erasure of Culture in America
Moderator: Etienne Toussaint – Associate Professor of Law, University of South Carolina Joseph F. Rice School of Law
This conversation highlighted how Reconstruction’s revolutionary achievements which are often mischaracterized as failures, remain overlooked in legal education and public discourse. The speakers examined Reconstruction’s relevance today, particularly in movements for racial justice, voting rights, and criminal justice reform. They also introduced Reconstructionism as a legal and philosophical framework to counter originalism, emphasizing equality, multiracial democracy, and transformative justice.
Highlights:
North Carolina’s 1868 Reconstruction Constitution as a way of restoring voting rights for formerly incarcerated people, invoking the ban on property qualifications
Reconstruction thinking is iterative → abolishing barriers (abolition) must be followed by rebuilding (Reconstruction)
Regressive movements seek freedom from marginalized groups while Reconstructionist movements seek freedom with others through solidarity, shared rights, and inclusive democracy
Modern threats like the Trump administration’s mass deportations echo post-Reconstruction-era regression
To understand Reconstruction, it must be framed as movement and model for friendship, solidarity, and justice