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A review by linneacolleenann
The Third Reconstruction: America's Struggle for Racial Justice in the Twenty-First Century by Peniel E. Joseph
I heard an interview with the author of this book on Higher Learning, a podcast featuring Van Lathan Jr and Rachel Lindsay. It was around MLK Jr Day, and they were talking about the co-opting and selective remembering of MLK Jr by redemptionists in order to make it seem like racial equality has already been achieved and anyone working toward equality/equity is just being whiny. He also talked about why people remember MLK Jr’s legacy that way but not Malcolm X’s. This is a topic I definitely don’t know enough about so I decided to check out his book!
The book is ambitious and covers 3 reconstructions: post-civil war, civil rights in the 60s, and modern BLM movements. I think the topics are so interesting but I just had a hard time getting into the book for a few reasons:
- a lot of this seems like essays that were written to be read individually but then were put together, which leads to a topic being explored from the middle out and then back to the beginning. For example, we learned about Ida B Wells’ activism as an adult for several pages and then 15 pages later we are introduced to Ida B Wells and learn about her biography from childhood as if we hadn’t just spent pages on her.
- there is SO MUCH to cover, so none of it is really done in depth. I got a lot of topics to research on Wikipedia and learn more about, but not many deep-dives
- there is this redemptionist vs reconstructionist narrative that it seems like Joseph tries to fit everyone into, but I think people are more on a spectrum. It helps to boil down to these ideas so the reader can understand motivations, but putting Obama and radical democratic socialists in the same bucket feels incomplete. Joseph does talk about areas where Obama wasn’t progressive, or was focused on American exceptionalism, but would love to see that expanded on with other leaders.
All in all, I am glad I read this because I have a lot more topics to learn more about now, but I think I was hoping it would be more of a motivations-based or cultural-based exploration with nuance.
The book is ambitious and covers 3 reconstructions: post-civil war, civil rights in the 60s, and modern BLM movements. I think the topics are so interesting but I just had a hard time getting into the book for a few reasons:
- a lot of this seems like essays that were written to be read individually but then were put together, which leads to a topic being explored from the middle out and then back to the beginning. For example, we learned about Ida B Wells’ activism as an adult for several pages and then 15 pages later we are introduced to Ida B Wells and learn about her biography from childhood as if we hadn’t just spent pages on her.
- there is SO MUCH to cover, so none of it is really done in depth. I got a lot of topics to research on Wikipedia and learn more about, but not many deep-dives
- there is this redemptionist vs reconstructionist narrative that it seems like Joseph tries to fit everyone into, but I think people are more on a spectrum. It helps to boil down to these ideas so the reader can understand motivations, but putting Obama and radical democratic socialists in the same bucket feels incomplete. Joseph does talk about areas where Obama wasn’t progressive, or was focused on American exceptionalism, but would love to see that expanded on with other leaders.
All in all, I am glad I read this because I have a lot more topics to learn more about now, but I think I was hoping it would be more of a motivations-based or cultural-based exploration with nuance.