America’s Third Reconstruction
.E.B. DU BOIS IS PERHAPS BEST KNOWN FOR INTRODUCING the term into the lexicon of the Black experience. The term described the duality of being a Black American—neither fully African nor completely American, an enduring “problem” to be fought over in times of war and wrestled with during times of peace. The duality at the heart of double consciousness impacts the entire American project. America itself possesses dueling identities, reflecting warring ideas about citizenship, freedom, and democracy. There is the America that proudly identifies itself as reconstructionist, home to champions of racial democracy, and there is the America equally proud of being redemptionist, inheritors of the vow among white supremacists to “redeem” the South of “Negro domination,” or perish. Since the
