In his new book, Peniel Joseph writes that there have been three periods of Reconstruction in American history. First, the post-Civil War period brought the end of slavery and the fight for Black citizenship and voting rights. The second Reconstruction came a century later, during the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.

Joseph argues that we are in a third era or Reconstruction now, that began with the election of former President Barack Obama in 2008. Joseph is a professor of history and public affairs at the University of Texas Austin and the author of the new book “The Third Reconstruction: America’s Struggle for Racial Justice in the Twenty-first Century.” He joins Here & Now‘s Scott Tong.

Book excerpt: ‘The Third Reconstruction’

By Peniel Joseph

Excerpted from “The Third Reconstruction: America’s Struggle for Racial Justice in the Twenty-first Century” by Peniel Joseph. Copyright © 2022 by Peniel Joseph. Republished with permission of Basic Books.

This article was originally published on WBUR.org.

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