Policy Lessons from the Past: Dr. Peniel Joseph on American’s struggle for racial justice

[00:00:00] Intro: This podcast represents the views of the hosts and not the University of Texas at Austin.

[00:00:09] Bill Shute: This is Policy on Purpose, a podcast produced by the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. What we take you behind the scenes of policy with people who are and have helped shape it. For more, visit LBJ.utexas.edu/podcast. I’m Bill Shute, executive director of the LBJ Washington Center.

[00:00:31] Bill Shute: And I’ll be your host for this series as we hear from four Texas based policy experts and historians who have framed yesterday and today’s political environment. Our first episode is a conversation I had recently with Dr. Peniel Joseph, the Barbara Jordan chair in ethics and political values at the LBJ School.

[00:00:52] Bill Shute: He’s is the author and editor of award-winning books on African American history, including the acclaimed, the Sword and the Shield, and [00:01:00] Stokely a life. Welcome Peniel.

[00:01:03] Dr. Peniel Joseph: Hey, great to be here Bill.

[00:01:05] Bill Shute: I really enjoyed our recent conversation at the Washington Center and, and before we listen to that, I wanna ask you a quick question to help set the table.

[00:01:14] Bill Shute: As a title of your book notes, we continue to search for racial justice in this still young century. You draw on historic references from the post Civil War and 20th century strokes. As a preface to our conversation, define for our listeners the key differences between Reconstructionism and Redemption.

[00:01:36] Dr. Peniel Joseph: Great question. Bill Reconstructionists are supporters of multiracial democracy, and I think it’s important for all of us to understand that those supporters can be of any background color. Um, or political party. So it goes beyond partisanship, it goes beyond religion. Uh, it’s, it’s a belief that when we think about American democracy, Um, [00:02:00] everyone counts, or, or, or nobody counts.

[00:02:03] Dr. Peniel Joseph: So that means when you think about reconstructionists, these are folks who believe that the dream of the founders, uh, is not an exclusive dream, but it’s actually an inclusive dream. So that includes people who are, uh, native folks, indigenous folks, white, black folks from. All across the Americas, Central America, South America immigrants, uh, but it also includes women.

[00:02:30] Dr. Peniel Joseph: It includes people who have been historically marginalized, people who are queer, Bt Qia, a, uh, people who are Muslims and Christians and Jews, but also people who are atheists and agnostic. So when we think about that notion of multiracial democracy, it is capacious. It means that, um, everyone who is, uh, a citizen, In the country counts and matters and should not, uh, be excluded from being a member of the polity.

[00:02:58] Dr. Peniel Joseph: Uh, redemption [00:03:00] have a different perspective. Redemption are, uh, in a way supporters of, uh, John Calhoun. You know, John Calhoun, uh, is a very, very important American figure who, who really comes up with the notion of nullification. Uh, uh, he’s, he’s, um, a southern. He’s vice president, Senator outta South Carolina, but he provides a context of sort of thinking about the United States as less of a, uh, uh, uh,

a

[00:03:28] Dr. Peniel Joseph: group that is under a federal power, um, and more as sort of, um, individual states who actually have veto power.

[00:03:37] Dr. Peniel Joseph: Over what the federal government might want. So in, in Calhoun’s case, and in the case of redemption, they felt that anybody who said they could not have slavery institutionalized in South Carolina and other parts of the country forever. Was actually infringing upon their rights. Uh, this is a perspective that doesn’t look upon the rights of enslaved people.

[00:03:59] Dr. Peniel Joseph: It doesn’t look [00:04:00] upon the rights of, of women. It doesn’t look upon the rights of, uh, people who are outside of the framework of, um, a white, uh, male, uh, patriarchal society, um, as having actual citizenship and dignity. So when we think about reconstructionist versus redemption, um, Two different perspectives.

[00:04:21] Dr. Peniel Joseph: And again, redemption can be bill. Any color, any background, , any gender? This is not a color coded, uh, ideology. Not at all. So we have some of the staunchest, reconstructionists in American history have been white. Have been white men and women who are abolitionists. I talk in the book about Thaddius Stevens.

[00:04:43] Dr. Peniel Joseph: Thaddius Stevens is an American hero. I know we have a lot of schools named after Robert E. Lee. Thaddius Stevens one of the most important Americans, um, and one of the most profoundly patriotic and heroic Americans to have ever walked the face of the earth. But we don’t really have a lot of, uh, [00:05:00] statues for that Stevens.

[00:05:02] Dr. Peniel Joseph: And so it just shows you when we think about these. Ideologies, even as races at the center, people who are articulators of this ideology, uh, these different sentiments, um, can be of any background, any color, any gender. I

[00:05:17] Bill Shute: think that that’s a great context for our conversation and it’s, your book touches on so many great topics that I encourage all of our readers to not only listen to this conversation, go find your book, The Third Reconstruction, America’s Struggle for Racial Justice in the 21st Century.

[00:05:36] Bill Shute: Dr. Joseph and I will return at the conclusion of our recorded conversation. So let’s get started.

[00:05:42] Dr. Peniel Joseph: Thank you for joining.

[00:05:46] Dr. Peniel Joseph: Let me

[00:05:47] Bill Shute: start with the book’s title and its underlying premise. Now, the, The Post Civil War era reconstruction is well known by most Americans [00:06:00] and probably to a slightly lesser. Just how perilous it was and how quickly the freedoms gained slipped away. But let’s start with your definition of the second reconstruction and the third reconstruction, which is the topic of your book.

[00:06:17] Dr. Peniel Joseph: Oh, definitely. Thank you both. The pleasure to be here. Uh, thank you Robin as well. Um, in terms of the second reconstruction, the second reconstruction is the heroic period of the Civil Rights Movement. Um, 1954 to 1960. And when you think about that period, May 17th, 1954 is the Brown Supreme Court decision all the way to the April 4th, 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

[00:06:40] Dr. Peniel Joseph: And in between you’ve got the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act, you’ve got, like right here, where we’re sitting is where, um, the Freedom Writers, uh, uh, this is the former, uh, uh, Greyhound Trails Waves bus station, um, where they set off in on May 4th, 1960. Um, you’ve got the sit-ins of [00:07:00] 1960, you’ve got 63 in the March on Washington and Birmingham and all those different events.

[00:07:05] Dr. Peniel Joseph: 64 is Freedom Summer, um, where groups of predominantly white volunteers alongside of African Americans go to Mississippi to try to erect freedom schools and, um, really dig for democracy there. Um, and of course we get Swer, Chaney, and Goodman, the three civil rights martyrs. And then in 65 we’ve got. The Selma to Montgomery March and demonstration, uh, Lyndon Johnson’s famous speech on March 15th.

[00:07:33] Dr. Peniel Joseph: Uh, the We Shall Overcome Speech, uh, and then the passage of the Voting Rights Act in on August 6th, 1965 and in 66, 67, 68. What we really see are combination urban rebellions. Uh, we see, um, the politics of backlash, right? Uh, so when we think about that second reconstruction, Just like the first, there’s gonna be these different juxtapositions, both racial progress and [00:08:00] backlash.

[00:08:00] Dr. Peniel Joseph: And in the third reconstruction, what I argue in the book is that from the election of Barack Obama, really all the way to the present, because sometimes when I’ve done some of these talks, people uh, will ask me, uh, is January 6th the end of the third reconstruction? And I’m saying, No, it’s still happening.

[00:08:16] Dr. Peniel Joseph: It’s still happening. And the four pivot points are really this. Um, the election of Obama and what that means for our history. Uh, it, it’s, it’s, we we’re, we’re gonna have to, um, be away from this point for another generation, I think, to really calculate how big that was. Cause we live through it. And one thing, as you know, all of us who are into history know people who live through a time sometimes aren’t the best people to understand the time.

[00:08:48] Dr. Peniel Joseph: So the people who live through World War I. survivors, heroism, all these things, but you get a deeper sense to further your distance. It’s like right now, we understand [00:09:00] better. I think the catastrophe of the Civil War from the view of distance, you know, 700,000 Americans dying, one seventh of the male age population.

[00:09:10] Dr. Peniel Joseph: I mean, it’s, it’s a huge catastrophe. You know, you lose more people during the Civil War than you do these other, other wars.

[00:09:16] Bill Shute: In terms of, Yeah, to that point specifically, What are the precautionary lessons that we should look back upon? How the first reconstruction expanses in racial dignity and racial equality, how those slipped away?

[00:09:32] Bill Shute: What’s the precautionary tale for us today?

[00:09:34] Dr. Peniel Joseph: Well, I think, I think the precautionary tale today, and I’ll, I’ll link it to that third reconstruction, the Obama election, the rise of BLM 1.0 in 2013, after. Uh, murder of Trayvon Martin, the rise of Donald Trump and maga, and then everything we faced in 2020.

[00:09:50] Dr. Peniel Joseph: Mm-hmm. , all the juxtapositions of the, the pandemic, the protest after George Floyd, January 6th. But also the fact that we had a, a [00:10:00] presidential election where more people turned out than ever before in American history. So all the good, the bad. Um, I think the cautionary tales are that when we think about January 6th, these are unhappy patterns of political violence.

[00:10:14] Dr. Peniel Joseph: Based on race that haunt the body Politic. Mm-hmm. . So we’ve had earlier iterations of January 6th. One great example is gonna be Wilmington, North Carolina in 1898. So in Wilmington, November 8th, ninth, and 10th. And there’s a number of different great books on just Wilmington. David Zino won a pure surprise for Wilmington’s Lie.

[00:10:36] Dr. Peniel Joseph: The city of Wilmington has done commissions really since. around 2000 when trying to recover that legacy. But basically what happens at Wilmington is America’s first sort of organized successful political coup, right? Um, there is a dually elected government that is multiracial black and white, and they are going to [00:11:00] be slaughtered in an organized coup by elected officials, state milit.

[00:11:06] Dr. Peniel Joseph: Some of them are advised by Benjamin Tillman, the former senator and governor of South Carolina, who in the 1870s, And here’s another example of these cos had organized really a political coup in South Carolina, uh, through a group of white terrorists called the Red Shirts. And what’s so interesting is that what happened with the red shirts, and this happens all throughout the 1860s and 1870s is.

[00:11:32] Dr. Peniel Joseph: You’ll have two competing slates, a multiracial reconstructionist slate who say I was elected and a redemption white supremacist slate that says I was elect elected. And most of the time, the federal government really, except in some cases, doesn’t intercede. To, um, allow democracy to flourish. So when we think about January 6th, it’s really connected to those different unhappy patterns.

[00:11:58] Dr. Peniel Joseph: The, the, the last point [00:12:00] here is that when you think about the January 6th hearings, the first such hearings are actually in May of 1871. In May of 1871, we have public congressional hearings about clan violence in Washington. And the Congress authorizes that investigation January 19th, 1871, almost 150 years to the day of the January 6th assault.

[00:12:24] Bill Shute: Was that a Thaddius Stevens move? Was that the Thaddius

[00:12:27] Dr. Peniel Joseph: Stevens? Yes, absolutely.

[00:12:30] Bill Shute: So what was it happening in Washington at the time that led to this blind eye, to the multi slates between the red shirts and the loyalty? Was there a resurgence of southern power coming up through Congress? There’s

[00:12:43] Dr. Peniel Joseph: a resurgence of southern power, but there’s also one of the things that I think has always occurred when it comes to race in the United States, and we see it from 2020 to this point, moments of racial progress are really met almost immediately with moments of racial backlash.

[00:12:59] Dr. Peniel Joseph: Me almost [00:13:00] immediately, we can even think about the Obama election. Obama’s elected with the most votes in American history in 2000. by 2009. There are massive demonstrations by the Tea Party that are not just about policy. That’s the whole thing cuz having a disagreement with the president about policy was fine, whether the person’s black or whatever.

[00:13:19] Dr. Peniel Joseph: But these weren’t policy disagreements when they’re coming, showing him as some kind of African dictator. He wasn’t an African dictator, he was an American citizen. Wait, was he American? Are we sure? Are we clear on that? Exactly. And the birther movement. The birther movement came that same time. Temporary of the backlash.

[00:13:35] Dr. Peniel Joseph: Yeah. And the very fact that the, the, the main articulator of the birther movement becomes the next president shows you the backlash.

[00:13:41] Bill Shute: Absolutely. Okay, so you brought up President Obama and talking about disagreements. I have to point out in the book, You talk about this communal excitement at his election.

[00:13:53] Bill Shute: Yeah. Now the community really felt optimistic, but then you, you spend a lot of time talking about [00:14:00] his version of racial optimism. Yeah. You call it his special American exceptionalism and, and like all forms of exceptionalism, it has a tendency to kinda smooth out the rough Yeah. Edges of American history.

[00:14:12] Bill Shute: Tell us a bit more about your percept. Of his place and how he handled that. You know,

[00:14:16] Dr. Peniel Joseph: I’m a big admirer of President Obama. I think that comes out in the book. I’m a, I’m critical, but I, I talk about how his election impacted me as a historian, as a citizen, as a person. Um, I thought it was a really.

[00:14:30] Dr. Peniel Joseph: wonderful moment in American history, and I think he told such a good story about American exceptionalism that I wanted to believe it. Mm. Okay. So when he was speaking in 2004 at the Democratic National Convention and said there’s no red states or blue states, I mean, that sounded great and it sounded like what?

[00:14:48] Dr. Peniel Joseph: You know, if somebody could convince us all that that was the truth, maybe we would behave differently. Yeah, right. The, the, the pitfalls of that, and I think we saw it rather [00:15:00] quickly, was the fact that not only was their pushback against his administration, uh, in ways that were based on racial bias discrimination, but President Obama a lot of times didn’t realize how, despite his victory, there were millions of black people, especially those who are in.

[00:15:24] Dr. Peniel Joseph: Um, who were on the margins, right? So sure. The, the, the American exceptionalism and that story that he told about a union constantly perfecting itself. It didn’t sort of give us room to understand like, why Brianna Taylor, Why Michael Brown? Like, why are these things happening even though we have a black president?

[00:15:44] Dr. Peniel Joseph: And I think it took him, I really think it took the election of Donald Trump for Barack Obama to really see. How the depth of really this, this story that he [00:16:00] himself had narrated in from Dream Dreams from my father. Mm-hmm. and the audacity of hope beautifully and brilliantly, but, but he only distilled it to a point so he could do things like very much admire John Lewis.

[00:16:14] Dr. Peniel Joseph: Yeah. Congressman John. , but who amongst us did not admire Congressman John Lewis. Right. But when the young people in Ferguson were saying, Look, we want to protest Nonviolently in the tradition of John Lewis, he told them to take it slow. Yeah, right, right. So at the end of the day, even though he was a former activist, he was still president of the United States and he had those prerogatives in mind.

[00:16:37] Dr. Peniel Joseph: And so I look in the book at the tension between this president who really exemplifies a kind of, um, citizenship from above. , which is progress. Mm-hmm. , which is progress, um, with BLM activists who really exemplify, exemplified dignity from below. And I

[00:16:54] Bill Shute: wanna come back to that in just a sec, but in, in fairness to him, you do point out that, in your opinion, he’s gone [00:17:00] through a bit of a transformation since his two

[00:17:02] Dr. Peniel Joseph: terms.

[00:17:02] Dr. Peniel Joseph: Absolutely. Yeah. And we could see that the 2020 speech that he gives at the Democratic National Convention is such a ways away from the 2004 and the 2008 speech. He’s talking about democracy being in an existential crisis. In 2004, 2008. And again, I understand why, because he won in 2008. He tells the, in 2004, he tells us that in no other world, no other country in the world, is his story possible.

[00:17:28] Dr. Peniel Joseph: I think that’s extremely powerful and that’s when, when he says that, and I’ll tell you what he says in 2008 when he wins, but the two, the two lines of Barack Obama’s American exceptionalism when he says that in no other country in the world is my story, power is my story. that quintessentially sums up American exceptionalism.

[00:17:50] Dr. Peniel Joseph: The second line is on November 4th, 2008, he says to the world, And remember he’s in Grant Park where 40 years earlier in Chicago, police [00:18:00] had routed demonstrators, okay? And those demonstrators who were peaceful had been screaming. The whole world is watching, which becomes the anthem of 60. , they weren’t watching because they were proud to be American.

[00:18:14] Dr. Peniel Joseph: They were watching the Gulf between our Democratic ideals and how we treated people. Right, Right. 2008, Obama makes us all watch in a different way. In 2008, in November, November 4th, 2008, everybody became American. Around the world. Yeah, everybody. Right? So that’s the, that’s the high point of a kind of civic nationalism.

[00:18:33] Dr. Peniel Joseph: And what he says, he says, If, if, if there’s, if there’s. tonight. Who thinks that the dream of our founders. Now, he’s a black man who couldn’t spend the night in Chicago in 1961. He’s saying the dream of our fathers, our founder. Is alive in our time. Right. And people are screaming. There’s a quarter of a million people there in Grant Park.

[00:18:56] Dr. Peniel Joseph: Basically it’s the size of the march on Washington, but this time, [00:19:00] instead of King and the social justice movement leader, you’ve got Obama as president of the United States. And he says that the dream of our founders is alive in our time. He said, Tonight is your answer. But he says America is a place where all things are possible.

[00:19:14] Dr. Peniel Joseph: Mm-hmm. , that’s what he says. Gotcha. And to have a black man say that, given our country. That’s revolutionary. Yeah. At that moment. That’s revolutionary, right? And so that vision of American exceptionalism. We were all ready to ride that train . Okay. We were all ready to ride that train. And maybe if the opposition had been different, like if the opposition he faced had been the way, uh, Reagan’s opposition was, where they collaborated with Reagan.

[00:19:42] Dr. Peniel Joseph: They did things with Reagan. Right. Even as they disagreed. Tim, uh, uh, uh, as we know, Tip O’Neil was an ideological opponent of Reagan, but he was a believer in American democracy. So he worked with him. I think if that had, Perhaps we really all would’ve been just on a very [00:20:00] specific, maybe, um, enlightened vision of American exceptionalism, even though I still think that vision would’ve, um, left a lot of people behind.

[00:20:09] Dr. Peniel Joseph: But I think people would’ve explained those who were behind in that vision as people who maybe just weren’t working it out for themselves. Yeah, I think

[00:20:20] Bill Shute: that’s an excellent analogy, and boy, a lot has changed, not only since the. O’Neil days, but just in the years since Obama was president, uh, in fact today, Wall Street Journal released a poll saying that 85% of Republican voters still believe that you work hard, you can get ahead.

[00:20:37] Bill Shute: While only 53% of Democratic voters responded that way in the same poll. , you make a point in your book in many instances of talking about all of the challenges that, uh, blacks have faced trying to find representation, true representation within each of the major Yeah. Political parties. Uh, in fact, to quote you say, black folk, it often [00:21:00] found themselves stuck between a democratic party that loved their votes, but remained eager to court white voters.

[00:21:06] Bill Shute: Through policies that harm black interests on the one hand. Mm-hmm. and on the other, a Republican party that lacked the energy to even pretend to be interested promoting black interests. How much has the current iteration of the Democratic Party moved beyond

[00:21:19] Dr. Peniel Joseph: that? You know, I, I, I think that nationally it’s still there.

[00:21:24] Dr. Peniel Joseph: You know, I think that nationally it’s still there. I think that the Democratic Party, in a lot, a lot of ways, would prefer. We would prefer to lose courting white votes rather than to win with black votes. Yeah. That’s what I would say. Right? Yeah. And I think that, um, the big exceptions have been sort of the Obama presidency and really the Biden presidency.

[00:21:45] Dr. Peniel Joseph: Uh, but I still think, and I talk about this in the book, you know, black women are the, the biggest, most loyal. Uh, constituents of the Democratic Party, They over, they’re overrepresented as voters, right? Um, but they’re underrepresented in [00:22:00] terms of as elected officials still know, black woman, governor. Um, and it’s sort of in the supply chain of politics and power.

[00:22:07] Dr. Peniel Joseph: Uh, and I think one of the biggest reasons is that the Democratic Party is still at war with itself. Because, again, remember, this party is the party of John Calhoun. It’s the party of racial slavery and white SuPM. That in a way it wasn’t necessarily taken over. Like some people like to imagine by black people.

[00:22:27] Dr. Peniel Joseph: White Dixiecrats left the party, they fled the party, uh, after the Civil Rights Acts and the Voting Rights acts, and they fled the party at the national level rather quickly at the local level, like in Texas where me and uh, Bill have deep history, uh, it took decades. It took decades at the, at the local level.

[00:22:45] Dr. Peniel Joseph: So you could still. Uh, a Democratic governor, um, uh, uh, you know, elected, um, uh, president and Richard’s elected governor, uh, as a Democrat and Richard as late as 1990, but by 94 and since 94, we [00:23:00] haven’t had a Democratic governor, right, in Texas. So when we think about the Democratic Party, you still have forces there.

[00:23:08] Dr. Peniel Joseph: That are uncomfortable with somebody like Stacey Abrams, let alone Black Lives Matter. You know, Stacey Abrams is certainly progressive, but she’s really not this kind of, you know, fiery, uh, right radical or, or revolutionary in that way. Um, but they still feel uncomfortable with her. So I still think that the party itself still is not this unfettered vehicle.

[00:23:32] Dr. Peniel Joseph: For the deep democracy that black people have been pursuing, um, you know, both before the Civil War, but certainly in formal legal ways since the Civil War.

[00:23:42] Bill Shute: I’m glad you brought that up because throughout your book you talk about and highlight the important voice. Of black women, not just as voters, but in the movement.

[00:23:53] Bill Shute: Yeah. At the very stages of the movements, in the different iterations, not from I to B Wells all the way through. Right. Why was that such [00:24:00] an important thread for you to

[00:24:00] Dr. Peniel Joseph: write about? You know, I start the book Bill talking about, uh, my mom and, and my mom’s 83 years old. And, and, and, you know, my, my, my hero, my biggest champion and, um, influence.

[00:24:12] Dr. Peniel Joseph: And so I was looking at the way in which my mom’s stories about Haiti. Uh, uh, America, um, about black folks impacted me and all the different black women who’ve impacted me. I, I was fortunate to study with Sonya Sanchez at Temple University. Very, very famous poet and human rights activist. Um, and, and really getting into that formal fa space of black feminism and black, uh, women’s history.

[00:24:40] Dr. Peniel Joseph: Uh, and we, you know, there’s so many. Incredibly sort of talented black women in the first and second reconstructions that do not get the kind of attention they deserve. And that’s why I start with, uh, I talk about Angela Davis as somebody who, who, uh, tethers together multiple [00:25:00] generations, um, through her 1971 essay on the role of black.

[00:25:05] Dr. Peniel Joseph: Uh, during slavery and that pushed back against the Daniel Patrick Mohan, ah, Case for National Action, which really is a smear against black women that at times both, um, the white establishment and at times black nationalist also. Uh, colluded it, right? Black nationalists because of a kind of deep, deep, uh, misogyny and sexism and patriarchy and, and the white establishment, um, as a continued amplification of the dehumanization of, of, of black, of black women.

[00:25:35] Dr. Peniel Joseph: So talking about people like Ida B Wells and, uh, Angela Davis, and Stacey Abrams and Ella Baker and so many others, it gives us a different story and I thought it was interesting. During 2020, so many people were talking about amplifying the voices of black women. Sure. Right. During 2020, um, some of this had to do with, it was black women and black queer women who founded, [00:26:00] um, Black Lives Matter.

[00:26:01] Dr. Peniel Joseph: Some of it had to do with Stacy Abrams and, and helping Democrats get to 50 because without the voting rights work that she had done, none of Biden’s agenda would’ve been passed. Yeah. And some of it had to do with just so many different black women emerging as storytellers through social media and other vehicles and telling their stories.

[00:26:22] Dr. Peniel Joseph: Yeah, right. I’m

[00:26:24] Bill Shute: glad you brought up blm cuz it clearly, that’s the bedrock. Of the current struggle. I think you, you might agree that they, they had such an important role post Trayva Martin and Ferguson and certainly George Floyd. You, you say in the book you describe them as Black Lives Matter told America the story it needed to hear, not the story, it wanted to hear what exactly.

[00:26:49] Bill Shute: do you mean when you say that BLM inspired reconstruction’s policies from

[00:26:54] Dr. Peniel Joseph: below? Yeah. You know, one, one of the things I say throughout the book is that we’re caught in this struggle bill between [00:27:00] reconstruction sentiments and redemption sentiments, and I think that continues. I mean, the struggles that we have over voter suppression over so-called critical race theory, all these things, immigration reconstruction versus redemption sentiments, and so reconstruction senti.

[00:27:17] Dr. Peniel Joseph: Are sentiments that support multiracial democracy and really support, in my mind, building what Martin Luther King Jr. Called the beloved community. Yeah, right, right. And redemption sentiments. They really push back against those things. Sometimes explicitly because of racism. Sometimes it’s only implicit.

[00:27:34] Dr. Peniel Joseph: Sometimes people who support redemption politics don’t necessarily connect their support for redemption politics. With this longer history that I’m talking about, I think part of the reason of writing the book is to try to share that story so that people, even if it doesn’t necessarily change their minds, they can see that, Hey, I, I actually have gone this path.

[00:27:56] Dr. Peniel Joseph: This advocate of the clan. I’m not an advocate of white supremacy, but I [00:28:00] didn’t know that saying I want sort of a small government with smaller taxes Yeah. Actually can be used in harmful ways against these communities with a deeper history, uh, to the United States and being marginalized and oppressed.

[00:28:14] Dr. Peniel Joseph: Sure. Right. And so I think in a lot of ways, um, when I think about the story, That the country needed to hear, including Barack Obama, was that there were people who were the faces at the bottom of the Well, Derek Pell called them. Yeah. Um, who were being marginalized continuously even after the second reconstruction, even after the election of Barack Obama.

[00:28:38] Dr. Peniel Joseph: And if we truly wanted to be, uh, like what President Obama had said, a place where all things are possible, we actually had to center. Um, their dignity and their citizenship, right? Mm-hmm. in a lot of ways, you know, what BLM and what the third reconstruction is about. Certainly, I, I look at black people. As, as central, but this is something [00:29:00] that helps all people and all Americans.

[00:29:02] Dr. Peniel Joseph: I mean, when you look at the reconstruction amendments ending racial slavery, birthright citizenship, the equal protection clause, voting rights eventually helps all people, right? So the whole thing about black citizenship and dignity is that if we ever achieve that, we really, um, Impact the entire society, including immigrants, including, and that’s why I say plm, their cutting edge bill was really teaching, I think all of us that all black lives better, Which is why the whole notion of focusing on women, focusing on queer folks.

[00:29:36] Dr. Peniel Joseph: Yeah, focusing on trans, just the whole deal. Disabled people, it’s hugely important because you know, either we all count or none of us count. Right. And I. them imparting that lesson. Again, it’s not what we wanted to hear, and I’m saying including some black folks, right? Because it, it all depends on where you are in this super structure.

[00:29:55] Dr. Peniel Joseph: If you’re doing fine, you might not want to hear, Hey, I gotta help out homeless people. I [00:30:00] gotta do this or that. And you’re saying, Hey, I worked really hard. For mine. So this is, I think BLM pissed a lot of people off irrespective of race. Right? By the time they’re, I remember in 20 20, 1 of the things I recount there, and I found this really amusing, but I remember people getting very upset where they, um, protested at people’s brunches, right?

[00:30:18] Dr. Peniel Joseph: Just predominantly white people. They love that part. And people, people were. Apoplectic. They were like, You’re breaking into my brunch. Yeah. To talk about black life. And I was like, Yes. Like, that’s where we’re at. Right. Like, like, you know, you you, you’re breaking into people’s brunch and they’re like, This is sacred.

[00:30:34] Dr. Peniel Joseph: I don’t want to talk about social justice . I want have my eggs, my, Yeah. That’s where, Yeah. Yeah. I think that’s great.

[00:30:40] Bill Shute: I love that. Yeah. And it does tie into an excellent point you make that none of this would’ve been possible without. civil rights activism during the second reconstruction. So how much have the legacies of Dr.

[00:30:54] Bill Shute: King’s racial dignity approach and Malcolm X’s racial quality approach, how much of those men [00:31:00] incorporated into

[00:31:00] Dr. Peniel Joseph: the modern struggle? I think from 63 to 2013, we get a rough racial justice consensus and king’s notion of citizenship, Malcolm’s notion of dignity. Lyndon Johnson’s notion of a great society, Kennedy’s new.

[00:31:15] Dr. Peniel Joseph: All of that is hugely impactful. What they do is give us an imperfect racial justice consensus, and I put it down as from June 11th, 1960. To June 25th, 2013. June 11th is, uh, President Kennedy’s racial justice speech. Yeah. That’s broadcast, uh, in the aftermath of, um, the desegregation of University of Alabama.

[00:31:36] Dr. Peniel Joseph: And June 25th is the Shelby Holder decision. That really basically ends the, the voting rights section five pre-clearance of the voting rights. Right. That 50 years, that’s the most important 50 years in American history, I would argue. And the reason I argue that is that 63 to 2013. That 50 years is an era where you get the most, not just black, but uh, [00:32:00] Latinx, uh, Asian American, Pacific Islander, uh, indigenous, uh, women, female, um, uh, political, economic, cultural power in the United States ever in the history of the Republic and empirically.

[00:32:14] Dr. Peniel Joseph: I know I’m right, so I’m not gonna kick it into, into, into a debate with people over that 63 to 2013. That group of people that I just mentioned enjoy the most. Wealth status, access, not just going to the polls bill, but getting access to homes. Mm-hmm. becoming CEOs being in higher education. Right. Right.

[00:32:37] Dr. Peniel Joseph: Um, Than they ever enjoyed in the history of the Republic. Obviously, obviously the high point there is Barack Obama. Sure. Cause we had never had a black president. Just like when we finally have a woman president. That’s gonna be a high point. Cuz we’re gonna be like, this didn’t ever happen before and this is changing how we are.

[00:32:53] Dr. Peniel Joseph: How many boxes

[00:32:54] Bill Shute: at Kamala

[00:32:54] Dr. Peniel Joseph: Harris, check off. Right. And Kamala Harris. But 2013, I would argue the reason why we’re in. [00:33:00] Rough patch is that we’re living in a post consensus period, ah, during the third reconstruction because I think the, the, the, the attack on voting rights is an attack on the very idea of citizenship and dignity, not just for black people.

[00:33:15] Dr. Peniel Joseph: It’s important for us to remember when Trump talks about, um, Mexican rapist. This whole idea is this other rising of a whole bunch of groups, but it always starts with black people because anti-blackness is the organizing principle of the racial cast system in the United States, but we have to remember it includes antisemitism and that’s on the rise.

[00:33:38] Dr. Peniel Joseph: And I would connect the antisemitism, the anti-Asian hate on the rise with Trumpism. That’s what people have to understand. Nobody is. That’s what people don’t understand about this. They, when, when they see you, when you see people picking on immigrants and you think, Oh, well I’m safe. I’m not an immigrant, I’m gonna show you.

[00:33:55] Dr. Peniel Joseph: Wave my flag. No, they’re coming for you too. They’re coming for you too. And like I [00:34:00] said, they’re, they’re anti-Semitic. So people who might be Jewish and are sort of passing, they’re gonna come for you too. They’re gonna, they’re coming for all of us in that sense. And that’s why that’s the difference between redemption and that story and reconstruction.

[00:34:14] Bill Shute: Important point to make. Absolutely. In the time we have remaining, I, I do have one last thing I’d like to talk to you about. Uh, I’d like to refer to a passage from the introduction. You say, In many ways, the music I listened to evolved as I became more aware of the violence, poverty and racism that’s guarded my neighborhood.

[00:34:34] Bill Shute: You described the cultural relevance of hip hop. You described the, the personal impact of Spike Lee’s film. Do the Right Thing. Yeah. Right in a. Post Trayva Martin George Floyd era. What are the, the cultural touch points? What are, what are the lenses that a, a black elementary school age child will look back upon 20 years from now and

[00:34:58] Dr. Peniel Joseph: remember?

[00:34:59] Dr. Peniel Joseph: Oh [00:35:00] boy. I think that’s a great question. I think it’s a combination of music, um, social media, movie. . Uh, but certainly, you know, my youngest daughter’s seven and certainly, you know, the, the iPhone and the little things that they watch and the videos, but I think music is still a big part of it. Um, it’s gonna be hip hop.

[00:35:19] Dr. Peniel Joseph: I think they have more access to art than somebody like I did at that age because of social media and Instagram. We see, um, the black artists who did the presidential portraits and different things like that. But there’s, there’s, um, so many different, um, Cultural milus and it’s, it’s a pop. Uh, that is happening.

[00:35:39] Dr. Peniel Joseph: Even something like the new Viola Davis movie, The Woman King that wasn’t around when I was younger. That’s incredible. Like, so somebody who’s of age, I think that’s PG 13 to see, that’s gonna have a huge indelible uh, impact on them. So I think it’s, it continues to be music and movies, but I also think protest has become a, a big, [00:36:00] big part of young people’s, um, dna, a young people irrespective of race, uh, and background, uh, because they’ve seen it in the air.

[00:36:08] Dr. Peniel Joseph: Just like, I think one of the biggest impacts of Obama, and I say it in the book, was, um, that he was president for eight years. The young people, some of whom I teach, uh, who remember his presidency, Uh, they were really invigorated by that presidency, irrespective of race, right? Mm-hmm. , and, and he, for some of them, normalized a kind of, uh, black excellence that before had really been almost, um, relegated to the point of being a fantasy.

[00:36:36] Dr. Peniel Joseph: You know what I mean? Like Right. You know, we used to have movies about black presidents, uh, 1972, um, James Earl Jones, the man, um, there was. President Palmer. Yeah. On 24 and Morgan Freeman and like sort of deep impact and others. Right. And so, but it was almost like a fantasy. It was also like, it was like this is never gonna happen, so let’s just make the president black.

[00:36:58] Dr. Peniel Joseph: It started to become a true, [00:37:00] right? Yeah. And then when, And often secondary to the main, secondary to the main character. But then when it happened, It really impacted so many people, right? So in some ways Obama’s biggest impact was how he changed the narrative of American democracy. And I think, I think Trump represents, um, an effort.

[00:37:19] Dr. Peniel Joseph: I don’t think it’s successful to negate that impact. Fantastic.

[00:37:29] Bill Shute: Welcome back. In the interest of time, we opted not to include the audience questions in this podcast. I’d like to revisit one of them. Pan Neil, one of our audience members was preparing to become a history teacher and ask you how she might teach her future students the stories you relate in your book without completely abandoning the American history she was taught as a student.

[00:37:51] Bill Shute: Tell us your answer to her

[00:37:53] Dr. Peniel Joseph: question. Well, you know, I think that she should, um, and we should all be teaching the [00:38:00] beautiful and bitter parts of American history. So I think teaching about racial slavery and reconstruction. Um, allows us to talk about American heroism and resilience, uh, and belief in each other, and belief in democracy.

[00:38:17] Dr. Peniel Joseph: People risk their lives to aid those who are trying to struggle for citizenship and dignity. Um, I think we have to talk about. The, the uglier parts as well. So we have a context to understand how fragile democracy actually is and how we’re always in the act of self creating and co-creating that together.

[00:38:38] Dr. Peniel Joseph: So I think we can talk, um, and share, uh, a redemptive story of America while still not ignoring, um, the darker parts of our past because those darker parts or the impulses we’re constantly struggl. To confront and this has to do, um, not only just with the issues of slavery, [00:39:00] but I think when we think about the second World War and Japanese internment camps,

uh,

[00:39:04] Dr. Peniel Joseph: we think about the second World War.

[00:39:06] Dr. Peniel Joseph: And, uh, Roosevelt, who’s such an important president, not, um, really, uh, Really believing the stories he heard about, um, Jewish genocide and antisemitism in Europe. Quickly enough, many, many more lives could have been saved. Right? Uh, but then we can also talk about the heroism of American soldiers in the Second World War, right?

[00:39:31] Dr. Peniel Joseph: Uh, so we can talk about all these different things simultaneously. I don’t think we should. Focusing on just the bad. And I don’t think we should be focusing on just the good. We have to braid that story together because that is the story of us. So I think in these hugely hyperpartisan times, uh, what people get wrong is focusing on just either all bad or all good.

[00:39:57] Dr. Peniel Joseph: The true story of America is a mixture of [00:40:00] both of those, even up until this day. Well put.

[00:40:04] Bill Shute: And finally, what motivated you to write this book at this time?

[00:40:08] Dr. Peniel Joseph: You know, it’s a combination of good and bad. It’s a combination of my mother and the lessons my mother, uh, taught me. Uh, my mother’s 83 years old, Haitian immigrant, uh, moved to New York City in 1965.

[00:40:21] Dr. Peniel Joseph: And I was born in New York City in 1972. And, um, it’s a combination of those good lessons that I was taught about both American history, about, um, the American presidents. My mother loved John F. Kennedy and, and, and Bobby Kennedy. Um, but she also loved Martin Luther King Jr. Malcolm X. Um, so that was the positive.

[00:40:41] Dr. Peniel Joseph: And then really the negative was really the, the, what happened in 2016 and, and, uh, the, the election of 2016 and the way in which, um, honestly, Events like Charlottesville, Charlottesville, Virginia, and these marches with tiki torches that really threw us back, uh, to over a century [00:41:00] earlier. Um, um, really had me wanting to investigate reconstruction and these three periods of reconstruction.

[00:41:08] Dr. Peniel Joseph: And, and why did this keep happening and how could history provide lessons for us to really overcome this moment? We are both, uh, at the Johnson School of of of public policy, uh, both in Austin and DC and I think President Johnson’s greatest legacy is the ability to aspire. Further and higher and faster and farther than anyone.

[00:41:31] Dr. Peniel Joseph: Um, and this idea that the country was this aspirational country that could be a great society, I think indeed. You know, I don’t think there was ever a better. Um, aspirational goal for the United States than what Lindon Banes Johnson set out to do and, and create a great society, which he said was also a good society.

[00:41:51] Dr. Peniel Joseph: And we were gonna be kind to each other and we couldn’t exclude each other, and we, we shouldn’t be violent with one another. Um, so President Johnson, you know, in a lot of [00:42:00] ways led the way there. And I think, um, You know, I think that that’s what I wanted to recover by looking at those three periods. I think that, uh, we can be a great society and you start being a great society by being a good society.

[00:42:16] Dr. Peniel Joseph: And I think we, we have always had good people in the United States. Sometimes our government doesn’t reflect the goodness of the American people. And I think what led me to try to write this book is to think about how could we be such, you know, a nation filled with good people going through such a difficult time, uh, after the 2016 election, and how could we really get that redemptive narrative back that we had seen in the 1960s bring us all together under difficult times.

[00:42:46] Bill Shute: Well, I think you do a great job with that. Know the book is very insightful and a, a very good read. Thank you again. The, the Yeah, of course. And again, the title of the book is The Third Reconstruction, America’s Struggle for [00:43:00] Racial Justice in the 21st Century. Thank you for joining me here and with our conversation bene.

[00:43:05] Bill Shute: It’s been a delight.

[00:43:07] Dr. Peniel Joseph: Thank you, Bill. I enjoyed it.

[00:43:08] Bill Shute: And thank you all for joining us on this podcast. Come back to join me and our other historians in the coming weeks. For more insightful episodes of Policy on Purpose, please visit LBJ.utexas.edu/podcast.

[00:43:20]  This is Policy on Purpose, a podcast produced by the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin.

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