Publisher Description
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.
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William J. Barber II is both a pastor and a prophet. The Third Reconstruction is a powerful account of a new movement in North Carolina that is teaching us four things: that ideological extremism which targets the most vulnerable is best countered by a moral movement and not a partisan one, that single issue agendas must flow into integrated visions for social justice and the common good, that multiracial movements are needed to build both racial and economic justice, and that the willingness to sacrifice outside of politics is the best way to change the inside of politics. Rev. Barber also shows us how “faith acts” can transform political actions. Barber’s unquenchable fire for justice shines through every page of this remarkable book. I strongly recommend The Third Reconstruction, which shows how a moral, multiracial, and sacrificial movement can change the future of our democracy.
—
Jim Wallis, author of The UnCommon Good, president of Sojourners, and editor-in-chief of Sojourners magazine
About the Authors
Jonathan
Wilson-Hartgrove
is a celebrated spiritual author and sought-after speaker. A native of North
Carolina, he is a graduate of Eastern University and Duke Divinity School. In 2003
he and his wife founded the Rutba House, a house of hospitality where the
homeless are welcomed into a community that eats, prays, and shares life
together. He is also an associate minister at the historically black St. Johns
Missionary Baptist Church. An evangelical Christian who connects with the broad
spiritual tradition and its monastic witnesses, he is a leader in the New
Monasticism movement. He speaks often about emerging Christianity to churches
and conferences across the denominational spectrum, and he has given lectures
at dozens of universities. He is a complier of the celebrated Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary
Radicals and is the author of several books on Christian spirituality,
including The Awakening of Hope, The Wisdom of Stability, and The New Monasticism.
Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II is president of the North Carolina chapter of the NAACP, pastor at Greenleaf Christian Church in Goldsboro, North Carolina, and founder of Repairers of the Breach. He is the author of The Third Reconstruction: How a Moral Movement Is Overcoming the Politics of Division and Fear.
Erin Bennett is an Earphones Award–winning narrator and a stage actress who played Carlie Roberts in the BBC radio drama Torchwood: Submission. She can be heard on several video games. Regional theater appearances include the Intiman, Pasadena Playhouse, Arizona Theatre Company, A Noise Within, Laguna Playhouse, and the Getty Villa. She trained at Boston University and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.