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The Third Reconstruction: Moral Mondays, Fusion Politics, And The Rise Of A New Justice Movement

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.

Hardcover: 168 pages

Publisher: Beacon Press (January 12, 2016)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0807083607

ISBN-13: 978-0807083604

Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 0.6 x 9.4 inches

Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)

Best Sellers Rank: #20,023 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #49 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > Specific Topics > Civil Rights & Liberties #74 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Ethnic & National > African-American & Black #88 in Books > History > Americas > United States > African Americans > Discrimination & Racism

In The Third Reconstruction: Moral Mondays, Fusion Politics, and the Rise of a New Justice Movement, the Reverend Dr. William J. Barber II gives a riveting overview of the Forward Together Moral Movement in North Carolina. Rev. Barber draws convincing comparisons between the Reconstruction Era that followed America’s Civil War, the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, and the current Forward Together Moral Movement taking place in North Carolina. A distinguishing factor for the current movement, which Rev. Barber sees as the start of a Third Reconstruction, was the immediate reaction by the extremist conservatives in power in the state government. In response to the election of President Barack Obama – and, specifically, because he carried North Carolina in 2008 – the stage was set for retaliation by the shocked conservatives in the state. Districts in the state for the U.S. House of Representatives were redrawn in 2011 under questionable motives and that redistricting is still being challenged in the courts and puts the March 2016 North Carolina Primary in jeopardy as I write this review just weeks prior to the primary date. Under the guise of “Christian values” and with tremendous financial backing of the Koch brothers, conservatives took control of both houses of the General Assembly and the Governorship in the 2012 election. The ensuing onslaught of laws enacted to put the poor, ethnic minorities, teachers, women, middle class, elderly, and children of North Carolina “in their place” came out of Raleigh in rapid fire fashion beginning in January 2013.

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