The Lost Promise of Purposeful Inclusion: Movements for Racially Representative Juries During Reconstruction This dissertation examines Black-led, Reconstruction-era efforts to achieve purposeful inclusion of Black citizens on juries. It advances two arguments about these efforts. First, demands for racially representative juries reshaped the meaning of “a jury of one’s peer” and “an impartial jury.” In doing so, these demands reconciled these previously conflicting concepts, advancing the notion that proper governance requires race-based inclusion. Second, demands for racially representative juries often stressed that purposeful inclusion could occur under non-exclusionary law (what we today may call “colorblind”). Thus, these demands tested the wisdom of inclusion and the limits of the reconstructed constitutional order.