Abstract
A war’s end can prompt societal change. This article examines inclusionary justice in the post-war period, when societies have the opportunity to change in ways that include formerly disadvantaged groups within the scope of justice. Using historical material on the Reconstruction after the American Civil War, this theory-generating article examines the post-war inclusionary trajectory for enslaved people who were emancipated as a result of the war. After briefly describing the Civil War, the article discusses four points along an inclusionary/exclusionary continuum of the Reconstruction: self-inclusion, instrumental inclusion, obstructed inclusion, and institutionalized exclusion. The article then looks at after-effects of the Reconstruction at two points in time: the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education U.S. Supreme Court decision and the hardships after Hurricane Katrina in 2006. The article concludes with lessons from the Reconstruction for a psychology of inclusionary justice, including the multidimensionality, difficulty, and urgency of changing the status quo, the importance of including missing voices, and the challenges of studying inclusionary change. It argues that moral inclusion needs to occur in political, legal, economic, and social spheres of society if it is to be sustained.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adams, H. (1880). Senate Report 693, 46th Congress, 2nd Session, Part 2, pp. 101–111. Retrieved 7/24/07 from http://www.yale.edu/glc/archive/1129.htm. [Originally published in H. Aptheker (Ed.) (1951). A documentary history of the Negro people in the United States. New York: Citadel Press.].
Ahmed, S. (2005). No size fits all. Foreign Affairs, 84(1), 162–169.
Anderlini, S. N. (2000). Women at the peace table: Making a difference. New York: The United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM).
Apfelbaum, E. (2002). Uprooted communities, silenced cultures and the need for legacy. In V. Walkerdine (Ed.), Challenging subjects: Critical psychology for a new millennium (pp. 78–87). Hampshire & New York: Palgrave.
Aron, A., & Corne, S. (1994). Introduction. In A. Aron & S. Corne (Trans.). Ignacio Martin-Baró: Writings for a liberation psychology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Augoustinos, M., & Walker, I. (1995). Social cognition: An integrated introduction. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Ayers, E. L. (2005, May 29). The first occupation. The New York Times Magazine, p. 20.
Balint, J. L. (1996). Appendix A: Conflict, conflict victimization, and legal redress, 1945–1996. Law & Contemporary Problems, 231, 231–247.
Bandura, A. (1990). Selective activation and disengagement of moral control. Journal of Social Issues, 46(1), 27–46.
Becker, D., Lira, E., Castillo, M. I., Gomez, E., & Kovalskys, J. (1990). Therapy with victims of political repression in Chile: The challenge of social reparation. Journal of Social Issues, 46(3), 133–150.
Bikmen, N. (2007). History, memory, and identity: Remembering the homeland in exile. Doctoral dissertation, Social/Personality Psychology, The Graduate Center, City University of New York.
Blair, L. H. (1964). A Southern prophecy: The prosperity of the South Dependent upon the elevation of the Negro. Boston: Little, Brown [First published in 1889].
Bleser, C. K. R. (1969). The promised land: The history of the South Carolina Land Commission, 1869–1890. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press.
Brinkley, D. (2006). The great deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast. New York: William Morrow.
Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954).
Chesson, M. B. (1981). Richmond after the war, 1965–1890. Richmond: Virginia State Library.
Coser, L. (1956). The functions of social conflict. New York: The Free Press.
Deutsch, M. (1973). The resolution of conflict. New Haven: Yale.
Deutsch, M. (1975). Equity, equality, and need: What determines which value will be used as the basis for distributive justice? Journal of Social Issues, 31, 137-150.
Deutsch, M. (1985). Distributive justice. New Haven: Yale.
Diesing, P. (1962). Reason in society: Five types of decisions and their social conditions. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.
Douglass, F. (1865). What the black man wants. Speech delivered at the Annual Meeting of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society in Boston, April. Retrieved 11/10/06 from http://www.frederickdouglass.org/speeches.
Douglass, F. (1892). Life and times of Frederick Douglass, Written by himself. Boston: De Wolfe & Fiske Co. [Also see http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/dougl92/dougl92.html].
Du Bois, W. E. B. (1910). Reconstruction and its benefits. American Historical Review, 15, 781–799.
Du Bois, W. E. B. (1935). Black Reconstruction in America. New York: Atheneum.
Dwyer, S. (1999, Spring). Reconciliation for realists. Ethics and International Affairs, 13, 81–98.
Fine, M. (2004). The power of the Brown v. Board of Education decision: Theorizing threats to sustainability. American Psychologist, 59(6), 502–510.
Fine, M., Bloom, J., Burns, A., Chajet, L., Guishard, M., Payne, Y., Perkins-Munn, T., & Torre, M. E. (2005). Dear Zora: A letter to Zora Neale Hurston 50 years after Brown. Teachers College Record, 107(3), 496–528.
Foner, E. (1988). Reconstruction: America’s unfinished revolution, 1863–1877. New York: Harper and Row.
Foner, E. (1990). A short history of Reconstruction, 1863–1877. New York: Harper and Row.
Franklin, J. H. (1961). Reconstruction: After the Civil War. Chicago: University of Chicago.
Gergen, K. J. (1973). Social psychology as history. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 26(2), 309–320.
Greenberg, J., & Cohen, R. L. (1982). Why justice? Normative and instrumental interpretations. In J. Greenberg & R. L. Cohen (Eds.), Equity and justice in social behavior (pp. 1–47). New York: Academic Press.
Guttal, S. (2005). The politics of post-war/post-conflict reconstruction. Development, 48(3), 73–81.
Halbwachs, M. (1992). On collective memory. Chicago: University of Chicago.
Halpern, J., & Weinstein, H. M. (2004). Rehumanizing the other: Empathy and reconciliation. Human Rights Quarterly, 26, 561–583.
Harris, L., & Berlin, I. (2005). Slavery in New York. New York: The New Press.
Herbert, B. (2006, December 18). Out of sight. The New York Times, p. 29.
Hilberg, R. (1973). The destruction of the European Jews. New York: New Viewpoints.
Holt, T. C., (1977). Black over white: Negro political leadership in South Carolina during Reconstruction. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois.
Lemann, N. (2006). Redemption: The last battle of the Civil War. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Lerner, M. J. (1981). The justice motive in human relations: Some thoughts on what we know and need to know about justice. In M. J. Lerner & S. C. Lerner (Eds.), The justice motive in social behavior: Adapting to times of scarcity and change (pp. 47–70). New York: Plenum Press.
Lerner, M. J., & Whitehead, L. A. (1980). Procedural justice viewed in the context of justice motive theory. In G. Mikula (Ed.), Justice and social interaction (pp. 219–256). New York: Springer-Verlag.
Leventhal, G. S. (1979). Effects of external conflict on resource allocation and fairness within groups and organizations. In W. G. Austin & S. Worchel (Eds.), The social psychology of intergroup relations. Monterrey, CA: Brooks/Cole.
Licklider, R. (1993). How civil wars end: Questions and methods. In R. Licklider (Ed.), Stopping the killing: How civil wars end (pp. 3–19). New York: New York University Press.
Lincoln, A. (1865, March 4). Second inaugural address. Retrieved 1/16/06 at http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres32.html.
Lind, E. A., & Tyler, T. R. (1988). The social psychology of procedural justice. New York: Plenum.
Mackie, D. M., & Smith, E. R. (Eds.). (2002). From prejudice to intergroup emotions: Differentiated reactions to social groups. New York: Psychology Press.
Magdol, E. (1977). A right to the land: Essays on the freedmen’s community. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
Mohamed, A. N. (1998). Attitudes of Northern papers toward the egalitarian laws of Reconstruction. Newspaper Research Journal, 19(3), 47–62.
Opotow, S. (1990). Moral exclusion and injustice: An overview. Journal of Social Issues, 46(1), 1–20.
Opotow, S. (1993). Animals and the scope of justice. Journal of Social Issues, 49(1), 71–85.
Opotow, S. (1994). Predicting protection: Scope of justice and the natural world. Journal of Social Issues, 50(2), 49–63.
Opotow, S. (1995). Drawing the line: Social categorization, moral exclusion, and the scope of justice. In B. B. Bunker & J. Z. Rubin (Eds.), Conflict, cooperation, and justice (pp. 347–369). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Opotow, S. (2001). Reconciliation in times of impunity: Challenges for social justice. Social Justice Research, 14(2), 149–170.
Opotow, S. (2004). Hate, conflict, and moral exclusion. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), The psychology of hate. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Opotow, S., Gerson, J., & Woodside, S. (2005). From moral exclusion to moral inclusion: Theory for teaching peace. Theory Into Practice, 44(4), 303–318.
Palencia Prado, T. (1997). The Guatemalan peace process: Advocates and guarantors. Accord 2 [Special issue: Negotiating Rights: The Guatemalan Peace Process]. Retrieved May 29, 2001 from the World Wide Web: http://www.c-r.org/acc_guat/prado.htm.
Pickren, W. E. (2004). Fifty years on: Brown v Board of Education and American psychology, 1954–2000: An introduction. American Psychologist, 59(6), 493–494.
Pondy, L. R. (1992). Reflections on organizational conflict. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 13(3), 255–261.
Richardson, H. C. (2001). The death of Reconstruction: Race, labor, and politics in the post-Civil War North, 1865–1902. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University.
Sampson, E. E. (1993). Identity politics: Challenges to psychology’s understanding. American Psychologist, 48, 1219–1230.
Simmel, G. (1955). Conflict. New York: Free Press.
Stampp, K. M. (1965). The era of Reconstruction, 1865–1877. New York: Random House.
Staub, E. (1990). Moral exclusion, personal goal theory, and extreme destructiveness. Journal of Social Issues, 46(1), 47–64.
Staub, E. (2004). Justice, healing, and reconciliation: How the people’s court in Rwanda can promote them. Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, 10(1), 25–32.
Stedman, S. J. (1993). The end of the American Civil War. In R. Licklider (Ed.), Stopping the killing: How civil wars end (pp. 164–187). New York: New York University Press.
Sterling, D. (1976). The trouble they seen: Black people tell the story of Reconstruction. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
Still battering Katrina’s homeless. (2006, April 20). New York Times, p. A10.
Sutherland, D. E. (1981). A special kind of problem: The response of household slaves and their masters to freedom. Southern Studies, XX(2), 151–166.
Tindall, G. B., & Shi, D. E. (1999). America: A narrative history. London and New York: WW Norton & Company.
Thornbrough, E. L. (1972). Black Reconstructionists. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Trelease, A. W. (1971). White terror. New York: Harper & Row.
Vermunt, R. (2002). The justice motive on perspective. In M. Ross & D. T. Miller (Eds.), The justice motive in everyday life (pp. 63–78). Cambridge: Cambridge University.
Wedgwood, R., & Jacobson, H. K. (2001). State reconstruction after civil conflict. American Journal of International Law, 95(1), 1–6.
Wilson, T. B. (1965). Black Codes of the South. University, AL: University of Alabama Press.
Woodward, C. V. (1960). The burden of Southern history. New York: Random House.
Woodward, C. V. (1966). The strange career of Jim Crow (2nd ed.). New York: Oxford University.
World factbook [electronic resource]. (2006). St. Paul, MN: Quanta.
Zur, J. (1996). From PTSD to voices in context: From an “experience-far” to an “experience-near” understanding of responses to war and atrocity across cultures. International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 42(4), 305–317.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Small Group Meeting on Social Justice and Intergroup Conflict at the Instituto de Ciências Sociais and the Center of Research of the Department of Social and Organizational Psychology (ISCTE) at the Universidade de Lisboa in September 2005. The conference was organized by Jorge Vala, Isabel Correia, Rui Lopes, and Hélder Alves and sponsored by the European Association of Experimental Social Psychology. I thank Jorge Vala, Isabel Correia, and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful remarks in preparing this manuscript.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Opotow, S. “Not So Much As Place to Lay Our Head...”: Moral Inclusion and Exclusion in the American Civil War Reconstruction. Soc Just Res 21, 26–49 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11211-007-0061-9
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11211-007-0061-9