By Vikki Bynum

This past week, in celebration of the 4th of July, I joined several historians to discuss the importance of the American Revolution and the American Civil War to the political transformation of our nation. In 1776, America moved from being a slaveholding colony to creating a nation, via the Declaration of Independence,  founded on the principle of human equality. Only after decades of struggle and a protracted civil war did that principle became law. In 1865, the United States’ defeat of the Confederate States of America, which was formed to protect and expand the institution of slavery, opened the door to reconstructing our nation by amending its Constitution—first, by abolishing slavery, then, between 1868 and 1870, by bestowing rights of citizenship on freed people. For this reason, the Civil War is often called America’s second revolution.

But the hopeful beginnings of Reconstruction were followed by a tragic…