The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again

by Robert D. Putnam

The 2018 March for Our Lives, in which 1.2 million people gathered at over 880 events in the US and across the globe to protest gun violence and school shootings, is but one example. As is the Families Belong Together initiative, calling for an end to the Trump administration’s inhumane treatment of immigrants in border detention facilities. The social media driven #MeToo movement—which is a clarion call for both personal and institutional accountability—is also part of a broader moral awakening in today’s America. And the Poor People’s Campaign, led by Reverend William Barber, describes its efforts to combat systemic racism and intergenerational poverty as “a national call for moral revival.”17