The Reverend’s thesis: Now is “the middle of the Third Reconstruction.” Each Reconstruction is made of “moral fusion movements,” not merely rooted in political interests, but instead based on deep faith, moral values, and constitutional principles. In the 1800s, fusion movements were central to the First Reconstruction. Whites and blacks joined to reconstruct America with the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, biracial governments, and mutual support for black liberation and women’s suffrage. Because fusion movements undermine the status quo, violent, immoral backlashes follow, like Jim Crow. Yet, in the 1950s and ’60s, many races, religious groups, the young and old, unions and workers, joined in fusion movements again, giving rise to a Second Reconstruction. They opposed the Vietnam War, passed the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, expanded social security, and more. Yet again, a backlash followed. But today, signaled by movements that together resist voter suppression, environmental degradation, police violence, economic inequality, and other injustice, Reverend Barber says this is the Third Reconstruction.