The ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment on July 9, 1868 was a turning point in United States history. Arriving at the height of Reconstruction, the amendment marked the first time the U.S. Constitution explicitly addressed the question of who qualified as an American citizen. Southern African Americans who had won their freedom in the Civil War were, in effect, forcing the country to redefine its identity, and to make good on its promise of universalism. The vision of emancipation expressed in the Amendment was expansive, serving to enshrine in law the principles of due process and equal protection as well as the basic right to citizenship.
Yet, a century and a half later, its goals remain unfulfilled. Movement leader Reverend William J. Barber II argues that the task facing the United States today is nothing short of a “Third Reconstruction,” drawing on the legacies of both the Reconstruction era of the 1860s and 1870s and the civil rights movement, or “Second Reconstruction,” of the 1960s and 1970s.
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