![\"Jamelle](\"https:\/\/insideucr.ucr.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/2026-04\/2026-04-02_hays_lecture_bouie_008.jpg\" "\\"Hays")
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New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie delivers the 57th Annual Hays Press-Enterprise Lecture on Thursday, April 2, 2026. (UCR\/Stan Lim)<\/p>\n
He described competing ideas of American freedom during Reconstruction from the formerly enslaved seeking full rights as Americans to former slaveholders who did not view their freedom as legitimate and used Jim Crow laws to strip them of equal rights.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho can claim full membership in the political community, and what exactly is American freedom? Is it the freedom of all people here to pursue life, liberty, and happiness, or is it something much more limited, a privilege for the few, free to exercise their power as they see fit?\u201d Bouie said.<\/p>\n
During Reconstruction, the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the U.S. Constitution were passed. They abolished slavery and prohibited the use of race in denying the right to vote. The 14th Amendment established birthright citizenship, which the Trump Administration is trying to overturn with a case that went before the U.S. Supreme Court the day before Bouie\u2019s lecture.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is what we’re ultimately arguing about, whether this country is going to be for everyone, whether it will offer opportunity to everyone, or whether it’s going to be a playground for a select few of very wealthy people who can then exclude whom they want on whatever basis they want,\u201d Bouie said.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why Reconstruction matters because that project of trying to build an equal society in the U.S. never ended, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cReconstruction will always be a time that we go back to, to understand the highest aspirations this country has had, what it maybe looks like to try to bring those into being, and what we can learn from that effort to try to do that for ourselves in the present,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n