But change must reach deeper than criminal justice reform. After a year in which the pandemic hit Black Americans hardest, when soaring gun violence hit Black communities hardest, when the inequities of our economic system, generation after generation, lock too many Black Americans out of the chance for advancement, we must set our sights high. And after a year in which a movement for justice awakened our country to the stubborn fact of systemic racism, and a Black woman was elected vice president by an electoral coalition led by people of color, we are reminded of the ways our country at its best can turn pain into purpose. A Third Reconstruction, as Rev. William Barber notes, requires society-wide action and an assertion of federal power.
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