Critically-acclaimed author and civil rights advocate to speak at OSU

Thursday, January 11, 2018

Critically-acclaimed author and human and civil rights advocate Carol Anderson will speak at Oklahoma State University’s Student Union Theater on Tuesday, April 3, at 7 p.m.  Her 2016 book “White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of America’s Racial Divide,” was a New York Times bestseller and National Book Critics Circle Award Winner.  The talk is free and open to the public.  

The book rose from her Washington Post op-ed, “White Rage,” which was the most widely shared for the paper in 2014.  Currently a professor of African American Studies at Emory University, Anderson has published two previous books, while her research has attracted funding from the American Council of Learned Societies, the Ford Foundation, National Humanities Center, Harvard University, and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.  

“Carol Anderson is an unforgettable speaker and award-winning author who articulates the causes and effects of America’s racial divide with brilliance and power,” said Laura Belmonte, head of the Department of History at OSU.  “This will be an unforgettable and timely event that anyone who cares about diversity and inclusion in the United States will not want to miss.” 

Anderson has served on working groups dealing with race at Stanford’s Center for Applied Science and Behavioral Studies, the Aspen Institute, and the United Nations. In addition, based on the strength and accessibility of her research, the leadership at Amnesty International, USA, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Ford Foundation, and others have used her book “Eyes Off the Prize: The United Nations and the African American Struggle for Human Rights, 1944-1955” to frame and examine their human rights work in the United States.  

This has also led to sought-after commentary in Foreign Policy, the Washington Post, and CNN.com that places contemporary issues dealing with race, human rights, and politics in a historical perspective.  

Anderson was a member of the U.S. State Department’s Historical Advisory Committee and the Board of Directors of the Harry S. Truman Library Institute and the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative.  

She is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Miami University, where she earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in political science (international relations) and history. She earned her doctorate in history from The Ohio State University. 

Her talk is made possible by a collaboration between the College of Arts and Sciences, the College of Education, Health, and Aviation, the Spears School of Business, and the Office of Institutional Diversity at OSU.