Looking East to find West

Mapping a Second Reconstruction drawing from African wisdom traditions

January 22, 2026

In 1916, G. Herbert Renfro, a black attorney and bibliophile, published a slim volume of Phillis Wheatley’s poetry in Washington, D.C. In a biographical sketch, Renfro conveyed a rare, shimmering fragment of the poet’s earliest memory of Africa: the sight of her mother every morning as she would "pour out water before the rising sun." This simple, sacred act, a ritualized offering of love and respect for the natural world, exemplifies the sensibilities of our West African foremothers.

As we consider a contemporary U.S. society in need of deep healing, we are drawing directly from such graceful, ancestral practices. It is our intent to allow their spirit to inform our own sensibilities as we envision models of repair applicable to our current moment.

As those who spoke of dominating the “Western Hemisphere” from (Greenland to Venezuela and Canada to Cuba, regaining the Panama Canal, reinforcing corrupt complicities with El Salvador and potentially all of the Americas) were referring to the “Western Hemisphere” as being “our hemisphere,” meaning the entire landmass of the Americas and waters including what we still call the Gulf of Mexico), we wondered why these imperialists and even many of their critics seemed to conceive of the Western Hemisphere as just being the Americas when we all know that “the West” also means Western Europe.

Surveying the situation, we learned that Western Africa is also part of the Western hemisphere.

In our close-up view, the cultivation of rice in the South Carolina coastal plain ceases to be merely a story of "New World" plantation economics and becomes a narrative of hemispheric continuity. The "Rice Coast" of West Africa (spanning from Senegal and the Gambia down to Sierra Leone and Liberia) and the coastal plain of South Carolina and Georgia share an ecological history although the U.S. is further north.

But the story does not end in the Gullah Geechee coastal plain or with its harvest. The memory of the Middle Passage is carried not only in the soul but in the seeds of the earth, and the full map of the West redraws itself in our conception.

The Western Hemisphere has been deeply African in its agriculture (cotton, peanuts, yams, greens, okra, in addition to rice), its inventions, music, arts, crafts, religion, landscaping, intellect and spirit. 

The founding fathers of the United States readily absorbed the benefits of African labor and cuisine and outwardly rejected other African attributes, although they were shaped in varying degrees, including subliminally, by these African Atlantic influences.

West African ‘best practices’ of community, justice, economic exchange, and spiritual affinities with the natural world are a bountiful resource for planning the second Reconstruction.

The first Reconstruction (the decade following the Civil War) was sabotaged by a return to punitive racial control. The second Reconstruction should be fully equitable in its hemispheric vision. 

It’s a vision informed by principles such as how African communities historically managed disputes and maintained public safety through what we now call restorative justice, a principle prioritizing social harmony and the repair of relationships over punitive incarceration. Instead of jails, these systems relied on communal participation, mediation, and reparation to reintegrate offenders and prevent future conflict.

Our consideration of African wisdom models of repair coincided with a discussion about how MAGA is restructuring U.S. society on  Stacey Abrams’ January 13, 2026 podcast. The esteemed legal scholar Melissa Murray proposed a riveting fix. "We really have to think about whether this is the Constitution we need," she told Abrams, noting how it is compromised in various ways including in its support of minority rule. 

And in another discussion about the ICE disruptions in Minneapolis, we learned that if the state of Minnesota charges the agent who shot Renee Good, the U.S. Constitution makes it difficult for state authorities to prosecute federal officers for actions taken while on duty.

Melissa Murray concludes that “there are structural impediments to a truly democratic system in society that we have to think seriously about — how the Constitution affects (the impediments) and how it might be fixed."  Of course part of the pragmatic brilliance of the Constitution is its capacity for being amended. Political historian Heather Cox Richardson is recommending fixes as well as strategies and insider information.

In the post-MAGA reconstruction, constitutional, environmental and other fixies should include finally looking East to find the rest of the West.

We cannot build a democratic system using undemocratic means; the planning process itself must be inclusive and equitable, contend the U.S. developers of regenerative systems inspired by West African principles outlined in the rest of this article. 

The restorative future we seek begins with the recognition of the water poured before the sun: a commitment to repair that is as old as the earth and as necessary as the light.

For more about African - U.S. hemispheric relations in the Ecollective, see: 

The Africans who made Carolina gold worth its weight in gold.

The wata brings, the wata teks

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Map showing the African nations fully within the Western Hemisphere. The Western Hemisphere includes numerous other states partially within the hemisphere. The transAtlantic trade of enslaved Africans included peoples from the Sahel to Angola and inward to Central Africa. African nations that are partially within the Western Hemisphere” are listed in the chart below.

West African traditions of crime prevention and resolution, regenerative agriculture, and regenerative economies as sources of inspiration for a reconstructive vision of the United States of America

Even though they developed under different circumstances than ours, some of the principles of West African social and political traditions can inspire our approaches for fulfilling the potential of U.S. democracy and civil society. And some of the agricultural practices can be more directly applied or modified.

West African "agriscience" includes soil regeneration techniques that predate modern "permaculture" and enrich our composting.

 Zaï technique (Burkina Faso/Sahel)  A traditional method of rehabilitating degraded drylands. Farmers dig small pits (zaï) and fill them with organic matter (compost/manure) to attract termites. The termites digest the matter, creating nutrients and tunnels for water infiltration.

Anthropogenic dark earths (Liberia/Ghana): communities in West Africa (such as the Loma people) created super-fertile soils around their settlements through the accumulation of domestic waste, charcoal, and ash. These soils are carbon sinks and highly productive.

For a listing of additional West African agroecologies, see “These Roots Run Deep” section of the Black Earth Wisdom edited by Leah Penniman.

Sacred forests (Osun-Osogbo and others): many West African communities maintain "sacred groves" where hunting, logging, and farming are strictly forbidden. These act as traditional biodiversity banks and conservation zones.

 Earthen architecture: West African vernacular architecture (like the Great Mosque of Djenné or traditional compounds in Northern Ghana) is inherently self-sustaining. Materials are sourced locally (clay, shea butter, straw), provide superior thermal cooling without electricity, and eventually return to the earth without pollution. Architects like Francis Kéré (Burkina Faso) are modernizing these indigenous techniques.

In the U.S., policing is often an external force imposed upon a community by the state. In many West African traditions, internal force emerging from the community allow the community to regulate itself.

The Palaver Reconciliation Model is a distinct legal and social institution. Unlike Western adversarial courts (guilt vs. innocence), the Palaver focuses on consensus. Discourse continues until social harmony is restored, not when a verdict is handed down.

Yoruba Omoluabi philosophy, a moral system for leadership (Nigeria): While "Ubuntu" is famous in Southern Africa, the Yoruba concept of Omoluabi is its West African cousin. It describes a person of "good character" whose existence is defined by community integrity

Akan Queen Mothers’ Courts (Ghana):  In Asante culture, the Asantehemaa (Queen Mother) presides over a court specifically designed for domestic and non-capital disputes. These courts prioritize preserving family lineage and relationships over punishment, often using "shame" and "apology" rather than incarceration.

Masquerades as "spiritual law enforcement" and public safety mechanisms. While the masking practices themselves are too culture specific for adaptation to our current public safety and legal systems, we can draw principles from these practices. And some of the practices could be actually be applied or adapted for close-knit community and extended family contexts.

The most critical element of the masquerade is anonymity. When an initiate dons the mask (e.g., Egungun of the Yoruba or the Kankurang of the Mandinka), they cease to be a neighbor, a cousin, or a farmer. They become the spirit/ancestor. The Spirit cannot be bribed, intimidated, or accused of personal bias and allows the community to police itself without fracturing social bonds.

"Night Watchmen" of Benin & Togo: the Zangbeto (often looking like a moving haystack) of the Ogu people is the most direct example of a traditional police force. Historically, and still today in many areas, the Zangbeto patrols the streets at night. They are not just guards; they are judges. Because the Zangbeto is feared and revered as a spiritual entity, suspects are more likely to confess or return stolen goods. They also handle civil disputes. If a landlord is abusing a tenant or a husband is abusing a wife, the Zangbeto may appear in front of their house to drum and sing, effectively "shaming" them into compliance with social norms.

The Ekpe (Leopard) Society: The Government of the Cross River. In the Calabar region of Nigeria and into Cameroon, the Ekpe (or Mgbe) society historically functioned as the police, the court, and the executive branch combimed. Before colonial courts, if someone reneged on a debt, the Ekpe would place its insignia on the debtor's property, effectively impounding it. No one would dare touch the property until the debt was resolved. Laws were not written in books; they were promulgated by the Ekpe. To disobey the Ekpe was to disobey the highest authority of the land. This ensured trade could flourish and contracts were honored without a standing army.

The Gelede (Yoruba) and specific Igbo masquerades, use satire as a policing tool. During festivals, the masquerades will sing songs or perform skits that specifically call out people in the community who have been acting greedily, arrogantly, or immorally. This public airing of grievances serves as a "social pressure valve." It checks the power of chiefs and wealthy individuals who might otherwise be above the law. It reinforces the circular economy of behavior—if you take too much socially, the community will extract your status publicly.

African American historian and philosopher Molefi Asanta advocates the holistic practice of nommo: using language and story to actively define and transform reality. It views words as inseparable from action, relying on communal participation and co-creation—rather than passive listening—to build unity and transcend dualistic thinking. The word “nommo” is from the Dogon astronomical culture.

Economics: here we turn to traditional means of exchange that inform the contemporary theory of generative justice in which labor is not alienated from manufacture and consumption.  The theory is being developed into a practice supporting community-based economics by Ron Eglash and Audrey Bennett and their colleagues and former students Kwame Porter Robinson, Lionel Peter Robert and Micheal Nayebare.   (See: "Computing for Community-Based Economies: A Sociotechnical Ecosystem for Democratic, Egalitarian, and Sustainable Futures," The Information Society, 2025).

Also see the Ecollective article on Audrey Bennett.

Eglash’s broader body of work establishes the Adinkra production system as the definitive West African model for this economic theory. (He also cites a model of Iroquois agriculture and economic equity.)

 In the traditional textile village of Ntonso, Ghana, the production of Adinkra cloth operates as a "generative" economy rather than an "extractive" one. Eglash uses this to demonstrate how value can circulate within a community rather than being siphoned off.

The production relies on a network of local artisans—carvers who make the calabash stamps, dyers who boil the badie bark, and stampers who apply the symbols.

Unlike a factory system where a distant owner profits from the workers' labor, the value in Ntonso is "unalienated." The profits from the cloth return directly to the families and guilds that produced it. The intellectual property (the symbols) is "open source" to the community but culturally protected from outsiders, ensuring the cultural value also remains local.

The process is historically sustainable, utilizing locally sourced herbal dyes and renewable materials, creating a circular loop between the "natural computing" of the environment and the "social computing" of the village.

Just as the Adinkra artisans maintained a 'generative' cycle—where labor, biodiversity, and profit returned to the community source, Eglash and his colleagues propose that modern computing can be designed to replicate this circular flow. They maintain that we must move from the 'fighting heads' of extractive capitalism to a 'shared stomach' sociotechnical ecosystem.”

 In linking this background and experimental work in Detroit (often with local farmers and artisans) to modern technologies, Eglash and Bennett explain that while automation, AI, and mass production currently tend to exacerbate wealth inequality, environmental damage, and labor exploitation, these same technologies can be reimagined to support community-based economies. The goal is to shift from an "extractive" economic model (where value is removed from communities) to a "generative" one (where value circulates back to the people and environments that created it).

Far left: To make Adrinka ink, the bark is pounded to powder, mixed with water, boiled for several hours, strained and boiled again until it becomes a sticky black, permanent dye.  Source:Trip Advisor

Left: Anthony Boakye uses a comb to mark parallel lines on an adinkra cloth in Ntonso, Ghana.  Source: Carol Ventura via Wikimedia Commons 

List of nations and territories beyond the Americas and within the Western Hemisphere

Lisiting from Wikimedia

Adinkra patterns of econnectivity include the conjoined alligators symbolizing why we should not be selfish. We all share a central stomach (i.e., vital core).

Below: Adrinka cloth created and/or collected in 1825

Adrinkra cloth now in museum collection via Wikimedia Commons

Adinkra symbols

Adinkra in physics

 A small Adinkra graph used in the duty of supersymmetry.  Based on the raster version by Watts3pt0. Wikimedia Commons

In supergravity and supersymmetric representation theory, Adinkra symbols are a graphical representation of supersymmetric algebras. Mathematically they can be described as colored finite connected simple graphs, that are bipartite and n-regular.Their name is derived from Akan Adinkra symbols of the same name, and they were introduced by Michael Faux and Sylvester James Gates in 2004. Wikimedia Commons