A Third Reconstruction

Rebecca Zietlow

Last year, our country witnessed an outpouring of protest against police violence and in favor of racial equality in response to the tragic death of George Floyd. Thousands of protestors thronged the streets in our nation’s cities, suburbs, and even small towns in all fifty states. Polls taken during the peak of the protests showed that seventy-four percent of Americans supported the protestors, and support for the Black Lives Matter (“BLM”) movement remains high. Supporters of BLM cross both racial and partisan lines, a rare moment of consensus in this polarized and divided nation. Along with a movement of prison abolitionists, BLM leaders are challenging the very structure of policing in our country. Activists demand a reckoning with the truth of racial discrimination and subordination in our nation’s history and its manifestations today, marked by a renewed interest in reparations for descendants of victims of slavery and racial violence. The BLM movement is the most visible manifestation of what some activists are calling the Third Reconstruction, a transformative period in our history demanding structural change to advance racial equality. Along with police reform, improving the lives of low-wage workers is central to the Third Reconstruction.