Rebirth of a Nation: Reparations and Remaking America - Hardcover

Goza, Joel Edward

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0802884318 ISBN 13: 9780802884312

Publisher: Eerdmans, 2024

Synopsis

Joel Edward Goza dismantles the deep-seated myths that perpetuate white supremacy—and makes the case that reparations are necessary to heal America’s racial wounds and live up to our democratic ideals. 
 
Like many well-intentioned white people, Goza once believed that he could support Black America’s struggle for equality without supporting reparations. Reparations, he thought, were altogether irrelevant to the real work of racial justice. 
 
This is a book about why he was wrong. In fact, any effort to heal our nation’s wounds will fail without reparations. 
 
In Rebirth of a Nation, Goza exposes lesser-known aspects of racism in American history and how Black people have consistently been depicted as responsible for their own oppression to justify slavery, Jim Crow, mass incarceration and gross inequality. Goza’s iconoclastic and incisive account exposes how revered figures like Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln embedded white supremacy deep into our nation’s consciousness—and how Ronald Reagan manipulated this ideology so that society cheered as he advanced a set of policies that wounded our nation and intensified Black America’s suffering. 

But Rebirth of a Nation is not merely about accountability. It is also about hope. A reparations process is not a utopian dream; Goza offers a practical path toward closing the racial wealth gap. Rebirth of a Nation shows readers how they can join the reparative process, working toward the creation of a more perfect union.

Foreword Reviews INDIES Book of the Year Award in Religion Finalist (2024)
 

About this title

About the Author

Joel Edward Goza is a writer, speaker, and community advocate. He is professor of ethics at the HBCU Simmons College and teaches in Kentucky prisons. Before focusing on writing and teaching, Joel worked in urban redevelopment and community activism for over a decade in Houston’s Fifth Ward. He is also the author of America’s Unholy Ghosts: The Racist Roots of Our Faith and Politics, and contributes to The Hill, Salon, and Religion News Service. 

Edition details

• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Publication date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0802884318
• ISBN 13: 9780802884312
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 383