Black Reconstruction Reading Group, Member Page

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Meeting Time and Place

Meetings are on Sundays at 3PM PST – (If you can’t make that time, sign up anyway. We should try to start another group with a different schedule.)

The next meeting will be done on Jitsi: here.

Notes and other resources are at the: Black Reconstruction Study Resources

Club Rules

We support each other to read Black Reconstruction. A secondary goal is to form spinoff groups to complete reading the book.

No racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, violent speech.

Meeting Format:

5min – introductions
10min – presentation of summary (if one exists), discussion of reading
30min – discussion period. Then, determine next section of book to read, and by what date. Determine who will moderate the next meeting, and who will create a summary of the next section. Post this information to the file share.

* No talking over each other.
* Each speaker has a set amount of time to speak. Don’t go over.
* You must give all people must have a chance to speak, before you can speak again. Going down a list of all the people is recommended, because some people are shy and won’t break the silence.
* Men need to learn to stfu sometimes. Hold onto that.

Chat Room

The group chat is in Signal. Sign up for it, and we will add you by phone number.

Shared Folder for Files

We use CryptPad.fr to share files. It’s similar to Google Docs, but encrypted. You will need to make an account there.

Our shared folder is: Black Reconstruction

Contact John at [email protected] or Signal 6267108365 to get write access to the folder.

How to Prepare Summaries

To assist in reading, a person is assigned to summarize the reading. This is like “cheat notes” for the other readers, and for people who didn’t read the material.

There’s a template in the shared folder, above.

Other Social and Study Spaces

Facebook Group – a footprint in facebook. Not used for anything really, except to lead people here.

There’s an old Discord group. We can give an invite to you. Maybe it’ll be a fun place one day.

Twitter hashtags:

Instagram hashtags:

Study Aids

Book can be borrowed by the hour from The Internet Archive: Black Reconstruction

Chapter 16: BR Chapter 16 (This is about the KKK. In the event that people haven’t read the book, you can always turn to discussion of this excerpt.)

Introduction: Introduction by Eric Foner (Intro to the latest edition of BR.)

Marx on The Civil War

Reviews and overviews: Review of Review in The Nation, Goodreads, Amazon, WEB DuBois on Brittanica, Wikipedia, BR on Princeton AAS, Jacobin, MLK on Reconstruction at Zinn Education Project.

Videos: Introductory video about The Reconstruction, Robotic Audiobook Version of Black Reconstruction, Playthell Benjamin on The Souls of Black Folk, The Greatest Intellectual of His Era, DuBois and WW1, Saturday School – meeting vids from a group reading the book.

Films: Freedom Road.

Audio: Socialism and the American Negro.

Notes: are in the shared folder Black Reconstruction

Bookstores: List of Los Angeles Area Progressive Bookstores – you can ask if they can order it for you.

Part of the Black Reconstruction Reading Group.