Recon Video

The Unfinished Promise of Reconstruction

In 2015, a historic black church became the site of unspeakable tragedy when a gunman opened fire after praying with a Bible study group for an hour. Driven by hatred, he claimed he had to do it because he hated Black people. This horrific act forces us to confront a painful question: how did we arrive at such a violent and hateful time?

A historical Photo Regarding the Civil War (1860)

To understand our present, we must look back to the Reconstruction era following the Civil War of 1866. It was a period of extraordinary excitement when people sought opportunity and desired freedom after centuries of bondage. Yet looking back, African Americans had no idea what cliff they were heading towards. The Charleston Massacre and the oppressive Jim Crow Laws that followed stand as stark examples of the prejudice and hate African Americans endured during this tumultuous period.

Today, we still find ourselves haunted by the habits of the Reconstruction era. After Abraham Lincoln ended slavery, the fight to truly construct an equal lifestyle in America had only just begun. While some Black people were simply satisfied with their newfound freedom, many understood that liberation alone was not enough without ultimate equalization. In the summer of 1862, many thousands of slaves found safe haven, and when the call came that African Americans could serve, 180,000 answered.

Reconstruction initially meant aligning the North and the South, but these regions saw this process very differently. The end of the Civil War brought more questions than answers about slavery and what freedom truly meant. Even after the 13th Amendment, freedom remained an unclear term, its promise incomplete and its reality contested across a divided nation.

Disclaimer: I used AI to structure my notes into paragraph form and then I edited the paragraphs to my own liking