One of our preeminent historians of race and democracy argues that the period since 2008 has marked nothing less than America’s Third Reconstruction In The Third Reconstruction, distinguished historian Peniel E. Joseph offers a powerful and personal new interpretation of recent history. The racial reckoning that unfolded in 2020, he argues, marked the climax of a Third Reconstruction: a new struggle for citizenship and dignity for Black Americans, just as momentous as the movements that arose after the Civil War and during the civil rights era. Joseph draws revealing connections and insights across centuries as he traces this Third Reconstruction from the election of Barack Obama to the rise of Black Lives Matter to the failed assault on the Capitol. America’s first and second Reconstructions fell tragically short of their grand aims. Our Third Reconstruction offers a new chance to achieve Black dignity and citizenship at last—an opportunity to choose hope over fear.
"In the summer of 2013, Moral Mondays gained national attention as tens of thousands of citizens protested the extreme makeover of North Carolina's state government and over a thousand people were arrested in the largest mass civil disobedience movement since the lunch counter sit-ins of 1960. Every Monday for 13 weeks, Rev. Dr. William J. Barber led a revival meeting on the state house lawn that brought together educators and the unemployed, civil rights and labor activists, young and old, documented and undocumented, gay and straight, black, white and brown. News reporters asked what had happened in state politics to elicit such a spontaneous outcry. But most coverage missed the seven years of coalition building and organizing work that led up to Moral Mondays and held forth a vision for America that would sustain the movement far beyond a mass mobilization in one state. A New Reconstruction is Rev. Barber's memoir of the Forward Together Moral Movement, which began seven years before Moral Mondays and extends far beyond the mass mobilizations of 2013. Drawing on decades of experience in the Southern freedom struggle, Rev. Barber explains how Moral Mondays were not simply a reaction to corporately sponsored extremism that aims to re-make America through state legislatures. Moral Mondays were, instead, a tactical escalation in the Forward Together Moral Movement to draw attention to the anti-democratic forces bent on serving special interests to the detriment of the common good"--
The pioneering work in the study of the role of Black Americans during Reconstruction by the most influential Black intellectual of his time. This pioneering work was the first full-length study of the role black Americans played in the crucial period after the Civil War, when the slaves had been freed and the attempt was made to reconstruct American society. Hailed at the time, Black Reconstruction in America 1860–1880 has justly been called a classic.
""This collection of his always insightful writings from the last two decades allows us to trace recent challenges of left movements and to reflect on how we defeat Trump and the ultra right he has emboldened in the years to come."" ---Angela Y. Davis, Distinguished Professor Emerita, History of Consciousness and Feminist Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz. ""Bob Wing's Toward Racial Justice is crucial reading for social justice organizers and movement leaders, especially in this most consequential period of U.S. history."" ---Anthony Thigpenn, President, California Calls. ""In these incisive, original essays Bob Wing applies the hard-won lessons of his five decades in organizing to offer us powerful paths forward."" ÑJeff Chang, author, We GonÕ Be Alright: Notes on Race and Resegregation. ""This book is a critical resource for anyone seeking to make desperately needed change."" ÑAndrea Mercado, Executive Director, New Florida Majority
Allen C. Guelzo's Reconstruction: A Concise History is a gracefully written interpretation of Reconstruction as a spirited struggle to reintegrate the defeated Southern Confederacy into the American Union after the Civil War, to bring African Americans into the political mainstream of American life, and to recreate the Southern economy after a Northern free-labor model.
The classic work of American history by the renowned author of From Slavery to Freedom, with a new introduction by historian Eric Foner. First published in 1961, John Hope Franklin’s revelatory study of the Reconstruction Era is a landmark work of history, exploring the role of former slaves and dispelling longstanding popular myths about corruption and Radical rule. Looking past dubious scholarship that had previously dominated the narrative, Franklin combines astute insight and careful research to provide an accurate, comprehensive portrait of the era. Franklin’s arguments concerning the brevity of the North’s occupation, the limited power wielded by former slaves, the influence of moderate southerners, the flawed constitutions of the radical state governments, and the downfall of Reconstruction remain compelling today. This new edition of Reconstruction after the Civil War also includes a foreword by Eric Foner and a perceptive essay by Michael W. Fitzgerald.
From the "preeminent historian of Reconstruction" (New York Times Book Review), a newly updated edition of the prize-winning classic work on the post-Civil War period which shaped modern America, with a new introduction from the author. Eric Foner's "masterful treatment of one of the most complex periods of American history" (New Republic) redefined how the post-Civil War period was viewed. Reconstruction chronicles the way in which Americans—black and white—responded to the unprecedented changes unleashed by the war and the end of slavery. It addresses the ways in which the emancipated slaves' quest for economic autonomy and equal citizenship shaped the political agenda of Reconstruction; the remodeling of Southern society and the place of planters, merchants, and small farmers within it; the evolution of racial attitudes and patterns of race relations; and the emergence of a national state possessing vastly expanded authority and committed, for a time, to the principle of equal rights for all Americans. This "smart book of enormous strengths" (Boston Globe) remains the standard work on the wrenching post-Civil War period—an era whose legacy still reverberates in the United States today.
A modern-day civil rights champion tells the stirring story of how he helped start a movement to bridge America’s racial divide. Over the summer of 2013, the Reverend Dr. William J. Barber II led more than a hundred thousand people at rallies across North Carolina to protest restrictions to voting access and an extreme makeover of state government. These protests—the largest state government–focused civil disobedience campaign in American history—came to be known as Moral Mondays and have since blossomed in states as diverse as Florida, Tennessee, Wisconsin, Ohio, and New York. At a time when divide-and-conquer politics are exacerbating racial strife and economic inequality, Rev. Barber offers an impassioned, historically grounded argument that Moral Mondays are hard evidence of an embryonic Third Reconstruction in America. The first Reconstruction briefly flourished after Emancipation, and the second Reconstruction ushered in meaningful progress in the civil rights era. But both were met by ferocious reactionary measures that severely curtailed, and in many cases rolled back, racial and economic progress. This Third Reconstruction is a profoundly moral awakening of justice-loving people united in a fusion coalition powerful enough to reclaim the possibility of democracy—even in the face of corporate-financed extremism. In this memoir of how Rev. Barber and allies as diverse as progressive Christians, union members, and immigration-rights activists came together to build a coalition, he offers a trenchant analysis of race-based inequality and a hopeful message for a nation grappling with persistent racial and economic injustice. Rev. Barber writes movingly—and pragmatically—about how he laid the groundwork for a state-by-state movement that unites black, white, and brown, rich and poor, employed and unemployed, gay and straight, documented and undocumented, religious and secular. Only such a diverse fusion movement, Rev. Barber argues, can heal our nation’s wounds and produce public policy that is morally defensible, constitutionally consistent, and economically sane. The Third Reconstruction is both a blueprint for movement building and an inspiring call to action from the twenty-first century’s most effective grassroots organizer.
“Gripping and essential.”—Jesse Wegman, New York Times An authoritative history by the preeminent scholar of the Civil War era, The Second Founding traces the arc of the three foundational Reconstruction amendments from their origins in antebellum activism and adoption amidst intense postwar politics to their virtual nullification by narrow Supreme Court decisions and Jim Crow state laws. Today these amendments remain strong tools for achieving the American ideal of equality, if only we will take them up.
Designed to be either the primary anthology or textbook for the course, this best-selling title covers the Civil War's entire chronological span with a series of documents and essays.
