Dr. Carol Anderson, Associated Faculty in the History Department, recently contributed to a CNN.com article comparing contemporary acts of violence to anti-black lynchings in the twentieth century and before. John Blake authored the piece, “Why El Paso and other recent attacks in the US are modern-day lynchings,” which quotes Anderson extensively. The historian, who is Charles Howard Candler Professor of African American Studies and Chair of African American Studies, draws from her work on lynchings in White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide and notes that her uncle was “almost lynched in the early 20th century for standing up to a white man in an Oklahoma store.” Read an excerpt that features Anderson below along with the full article.

“But Anderson and others warn that many of the same elements that spawned the lynching era are stirring once again in America. One commentator even described the El Paso shooter as ‘a lynch mob of one.’

“The result, Anderson says, is that more Americans — Latinos, blacks, Muslims, Jews, anyone not seen as white enough — are now experiencing the same fear of being murdered at random in public that their relatives faced during the lynching era.”