Carol Anderson

Carol Elaine Anderson (born June 17, 1959) is an American academic. She is the Charles Howard Candler professor of African American Studies at Emory University. Her research focuses on public policy with regard to race, justice, and equality. In 2023, she was elected to the American Philosophical Society. Education Anderson earned bachelor's and master's degrees at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, in 1981 and 1983, respectively. In 2009, Anderson joined the faculty of the African American Studies department at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. The column was one of the most-read articles of the year, receiving thousands of comments, and Anderson was offered a book contract. The resulting book, White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide, expanded on the history of anti-black racism and retaliation in the United States.

White Rage became a New York Times Best Seller, and was listed as a notable book of 2016 by The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, and the Chicago Review of Books. White Rage was also listed by The New York Times as an Editors' Choice, and won the 2016 National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism.

Anderson has discussed the historical context of voter suppression in relation to alleged intimidation of minority voters during the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election. She has also claimed that "white rage" was the reason for the election of Donald Trump.

In her 2021 book The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America, she argues that the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution created "a particularly maddening set of double standards where race is concerned". In his review of the book in The New York Times, Randall Kennedy characterized Anderson's double-standard argument as follows:

Anderson has protested against human rights abuses of farm workers in Florida, in alliance with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW). She joined the CIW in calling for the supermarket chain Publix to join the Fair Food Program in response.

Anderson was a member of the Historical Advisory Committee of the U.S. Department of State. She is on the Board of Directors of the National Economic & Social Rights Initiative (NESRI).

Anderson is featured in the 2019 documentary After Selma, directed by Loki Mulholland, where she describes the history and current state of voter suppression in the United States.

Anderson was named the American Academy of Political and Social Science's 2021 W. E. B. Dubois Fellow.

In 2024, Anderson received the "Freedom Summer of '64" award from her alma mater, Miami University.

Books

Selected awards and recognition 2003 – Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award, Eyes Off the Prize 2004 – Myrna F. Bernath Book Award, Eyes Off the Prize 2016 – Politico 50 2016 – Winner, National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism, White Rage