“The contested intellectual history of Reconstruction [the era] has taught us that structural racism and private racist actions cannot be extricated from society by laws alone… The curatorial charge of Reconstructions [the exhibition], amid a global return to authoritarianism, fascism, xenophobia, and racism, compels us to ask: What cognitive conditions are necessary to think anew about the productive roles race and Blackness can play in conceptualizing future imaginings of cities and societies?”