On the 250th of the founding of the American republic and the anniversary of the Thirteenth amendment to the Constitution, you’re invited to join acclaimed historian Manisha Sinha PhD, for a special program that will show how emancipation during the Civil War constituted a Second American Revolution and how Abraham Lincoln became the first American President to publicly endorse black citizenship, the cornerstone of Reconstruction after the war, before his death. The Reconstruction constitutional amendments remade the American republic establishing national citizenship by birthright or naturalization and establishing black male voting. However, a long campaign of racist domestic terror in the south and reactionary decisions by the Supreme Court at the end of the nineteenth century would undo the gains of the Civil War and Reconstruction. The history of emancipation shows us that citizenship rights and American democracy itself was overthrown for a long period in the postwar south until the Civil Rights movement in the twentieth century finally implemented Reconstruction era constitutional amendments.
This program will take place on Thursday, December 3, 2026, in the ALPLM Union Theater. Doors open at 6:00 p.m. Program begins at 6:30 p.m. This program is free to attend but advance registration is required.
A book signing with Manisha Sinha will follow the discussion. You’ll have an opportunity to purchase her book, “The Rise and Fall of the Second American Republic: Reconstruction, 1860-1920,” and have it signed. You may also purchase a book in advance of the program when you register online, and it will be held for you.
Audience members will also be able to visit the special exhibit curated by Manisha Sinha, “The Second American Revolution,” which examines the war’s aftermath, the attempts to give African Americans an equal role in the South and the successful movement to reverse most of those gains for the next century. The exhibit includes the pen Abraham Lincoln used when signing the Emancipation Proclamation, artifacts from racial terror groups and short films explaining the forces that reversed Reconstruction.