Our Story

We insist that hxstory is a current event, that the personal is political, and that contradictions are the building blocks of change.

Reconstruction, Inc takes its name from the Reconstruction period of the U.S. when African Americans made major social progress after slavery was legally abolished. The federal government and the KKK aborted Reconstruction’s progress, anticipating our carceral society today, from which we still need to heal and reconstruct ourselves. Reconstruction, Inc’s first critical mass adopted the philosophy: “We change ourselves to change the world by uniting the many to defeat the few.” We developed our transformative Community Capacity-Building Curriculum (CCBC) to heal our collective, familial, and personal wounds on a political and clinical level. Since its founding in 1992, Reconstruction has mentored individuals as well as emerging groups.

In 1996, Reconstruction members co-created the documentary below with the help of Scribe Video Center’s Community Visions program:

The following video was produced by Zein Nakhoda for Philadelphia Assembled (2016-17), which Reconstruction, Inc’s Alumni Ex-Offenders’ Association actively participated in. This video features Reconstruction’s founder William Goldsby.