Race, Reform, and Rebellion: The Second Reconstruction and Beyond in Black America, 1945‒2006

Recommended by Tommie Shelby, Caldwell Titcomb Professor of African and African American Studies and of Philosophy

Beginning with the legacy of post-Civil War Reconstruction amendments, Manning Marable offers an inspiring, sweeping, and detailed history of African American social protest movements. He is ever mindful of ideological diversity among Black Americans even as he highlights the strong bonds of solidarity that have sustained us. He draws lessons from the successes and failures of these movements, lessons that, I believe, could be useful in this moment of reckoning and insurgency. As he says in the preface, “Any oppressed people who abandon the knowledge of their own protest history, or who fail to analyze its lessons, will only perpetuate their domination by others.” These lessons concern not only political strategy and tactics but also fundamental moral ideals and the ethics of resistance. The book is a work of social and political theory rooted in deep historical analysis, and offers a powerful vision of a multiracial democracy. Ultimately, Marable calls for, and hopes for, a “third reconstruction” to bring about genuine political empowerment and economic justice for Black Americans.