I'm Lana Ulrich, in-house counsel for the National Constitution Center, and welcome

to We The People, a weekly show of constitutional debate.

Jeffrey Rosen is away this week.

The Constitution Center is a nonpartisan nonprofit, chartered by Congress

to increase awareness and understanding of the Constitution

among the American people. Today in our special Civil War and

Reconstruction series we explore the extraordinary life of

Reparations Advocate Callie House.

Despite her status as a former slave, a woman and a widower with five children and little formal

education.

Callie House defied convention and led the National Ex-slave Mutual Relief, Bounty and Pension

Association, one of the largest grassroots movements in African American history.

She traveled the country lecturing and organizing newly freed African Americans in the quest to write the wrongs of slavery.

Joining us today to discuss Callie House and her enduring legacy are two leading historians and Callie House Scholars.

Mary is the Geraldine R. Seger Professor of American Social Thought,

History and Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.

She is the author of My Face as Black is True,

Cali House and the Struggle for Ex-slave Reparations.

Tiffany Patterson is an associate professor of African-American

and diaspora studies, associate Professor of History, and Director of

Undergraduate Studies in African-American and diaspora studies at Vanderbilt University.

She is affiliated with the University's Calihouse Research Center for the study of black

...