Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation

ACS > Projects > Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation

Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation

A national commission, with the requisite independence and resources, is needed to develop a full and accurate historical record of the laws and legal systems that must be dismantled, rewritten, and reimagined to achieve racial equity and prosperity in this country.

A key goal of truth and reconciliation commissions is to prevent history from repeating itself by formally recognizing and addressing grievances, establishing a roadmap for strengthening institutions, and addressing the root causes of past conflict. The United States has consistently failed to heed lessons from its own history, determined it seems to repeat it instead.

Slavery was not eliminated as much as it was replaced over time with laws that reinforced the marginalization of Black people in our tax code, housing regulations, voting laws, criminal legal system, and other laws and systems.

Racism is baked into our laws, and even into our institutions that interpret and apply those laws. History will play on repeat until this legal infrastructure is not just modified but dismantled and then built anew with the goal of lived equality.

This work – truth, racial healing, and transformation – involves all of us. ACS invites its student and lawyer chapters, and all ACS members to join in reckoning with our laws and institutions, and in reimagining a legal system that is grounded in racial equality and justice.

Statements and Publications

Press Release

ACS Commends the Work of the California Task Force on Reparations

Feb 10, 2023

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Nancy Rodriguez, media@acslaw.org Washington, DC — As part of its celebration of Black History Month, the American Constitution Society released the following statement in support of the California Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans: “ACS applauds the work of the California Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation […]

Page

Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation

Aug 31, 2021

Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation "I believe that truth and reconciliation are sequential. You have to tell the truth first. You have to create a consciousness around the truth before you have any hopes of reconciliation. And reconciliation may not come, but truth must come. That’s the condition." – Bryan Stevenson Racial inequality is rooted […]

Page

2021 ACS National Convention Opening Remarks

Jun 7, 2021

2021 ACS National Convention Opening Remarks Russ Feingold, ACS President: Welcome to the American Constitution Society’s 2021 National Convention. Thank you for joining us for what we hope will be our last “virtual” convention. Before we launch into our programming, Zinelle October, our executive vice president, and I want to take this opportunity to […]

Press Release

American Constitution Society Announces New Initiative in Support of a Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation Commission in the United States

Jun 7, 2021

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Pablo Willis, pwillis@acslaw.org Washington, DC – Today, on the opening day of the American Constitution Society’s National Convention, Russ Feingold, President of ACS, and Zinelle October, Executive Vice President of ACS, announced a new initiative supporting truth, racial healing, and transformation (TRHT) in the United States. The new initiative is part of ACS’s long-term effort to support transformative legal change through […]