c-span radio and listen to washington journal daily at 7 am eastern. important congressional hearings and public affairs events throughout the day and weekdays at 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. eastern, washington today for a fast paced report on stories of the day, listen to c-span any time, tell your smart speaker play c-span radio. c-span powered by cable. >> carol anderson, it is july 3, 2022. july 4, 1776, celebration, what does it mean to you? >> guest: it means we are precariously perched in this democracy we are heralding on july 4, 1776. we are in a perilous time. to me, as perilous as it was when the continental army looked like they were getting their butts kicked. as perilous as it looked when the south attacked fort sumter and launched the civil war. we are in perilous times where our democracy is hanging by a thread. >> host: why do you say that? >> guest: we've got what i call a land, sea, and air attack that is happening right now in american democracy, the land attack is the assault on voting rights, the sea attack is the at hack to wash away the teaching of real american history, and the air attack is the loosening of gun laws while having a narrative that the insurrection was legitimate political discourse and seeing all of this violence and threats raining down on election workers and election officials. ..re looking at what is happening with voting, what is happening with our education system and the narratives that we come to understand this nation, and then when you look at the deployment of violence as a tool of politics, we are under a full-blown assault, aided and abetted by the u.s. supreme court, aided and abetted by hyper extreme partisan gerrymandered state legislatures . we are in trouble. and where the hope is is that we have always fought back. we have always known that this democracy was worth the fight. so we have to gear up and fight for this democracy. host: as a historian at emory university, there has been some comparisons made to pre-civil war times right now. can you make that comparison? prof. anderson: yes, in ways where you get the sense of two nations, two separate nations going in two different directions. one direction is our states that believe in the fullness of their citizens' humanity but believe that people have rights, that believe that there is this thing called democracy. on the other hand, you have those who have what i want to say is a heron vote democracy. their vision is a democracy where you have a right this labor pool that is generating enormous resources that go up to a small strata of whites, and what that small strata have done is they have convinced a larger number of whites that they too can get the benefits of this massive set of resources coming up from this rightless liverpool. but that is not how this works. you are getting a sense of a hyper racialized democracy where only a small strata have a full-blown rights versus a democracy that is multiracial, both the ethic -- multiethnic, and vibrant. those two visions of what this nation is and can be is where the collision course is. host: in this conversation today, i want to focus mainly on three of your books, that includes one person, no vote, white rage, and the second. they all seem to havcome from instances that happened in our world. one person, no vote, we had the 2018 georgia gubernatorial race. white rage, michael brown. and the, philando castile. is that a fair way to put it? prof. anderson: almost. one person, no vote emanated out of the 2016 election because what struck me where the pundits saying, you know, hillary lost because black folks did not show up. they are not feeling hillary because she is hillary. she is not obama. so black folks just stayed home. what that analysis did is it ignored the fact that this was the first presidential election in 50 years without the protection of the voting rights act, which the supreme court had gutted in 2013. once you begin to factor in that you had a number of states implementing voter suppression techniques such as racially discriminatory voter id laws, such as limiting early voting, such as closing polling places in black communities, once you begin to look at that, you are coming up with a different narrative about what happened in 2016. host: what is a racially tinged voter id law? prof. anderson: i love that question, thank you. it is where you have, for instance, alabama with its voter id laws said you must have a government issued photo id, but your public housing id does not count as government issued photo id. 71% of those in public housing in alabama were african-american . what the naacp legal defense fund found was for many, it was the only government issued photo id they had. then governor bentley shut down the department of motor vehicles in the black belt counties. when the one government issued photo id you have does not count , so you are like, i will get a drivers license, but the drivers license bureaus are shut down and you have to go 50 miles to get a drivers license but if you don't have a drivers license, how do you go the 50 miles? basically a 100 mile round-trip. in public transportation is ranked 48th, alabama is ranked 48th in the nation in terms of public transportation. it is like -- it is not like you can just hop on some public transportation. that is what i mean by racially discriminatory voter id laws. host: let's look white rage. michael brown, amadou diallo, is that where that book stemmed from? prof. anderson: so many ways. i was in this thing called the op-ed project which was teaching faculty how to write for a public audience. we had a workshop later that day and i have the tv on and the news is just blaring and he did not matter which channel i was watching, because ferguson, missouri was on fire. in the pundits were all saying, look at this black rage. who burns up where they live? black folks. can you believe all of this black rage? it did not matter which channel, it was the same narrative. i had lived in missouri for 13 years. so i found myself shaking my head going, no, no, this is not black rage, this is white rage. this is where i came up with that we as a nation, we are so focused in on the flames that we missed the kindling. we missed the policies that are in place that then generate that explosion. we missed what we do with education, what we do with housing, what we do with the criminal justice system, what we do with voting rights, we miss all of those key fundamental basics of life in america and the policies that undermined them and turn around and say, look at black folks burning up where they live, without looking at the white rage underneath it. host: this is a quote from white rage. "white rage is not about visible violence, but rather it works its way through the courts, the legislatures, and a range of government bureaucracies. the trigger for white rage inevitably is black advancement." prof. anderson: yes. this is what being a historian allowed me to do. it was to see the patterns. it was to see, after the civil war, when you have emancipation, this should have been, hoo! but instead, this backlash happened with the black codes trying to reinstall slavery by another name, then having andrew johnson systematically undermine what the civil war should have been about, then having the u.s. supreme court gut the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments as well as the enforcement act which dealt with racial discrimination, segregation, as well as going after white domestic terrorism. so when you have these entities such as the president of the united states, these governors, and the u.s. supreme court issuing these edicts and these executive orders and these laws that undermined that advancement of what freedom meant, that is white rage. and i carry it through to the great migration, through the brown decision, through the civil rights movement, and through the election of barack obama. host: one of the things you do with the brown decision is talked about how it was not fully implemented in some places and you use san antonio as an example. prof. anderson: part of what we see in san antonio is that you had this massive disparity. you've got this sense of equality coming up under the 14th amendment, this equal protection under the law. in a neighborhood in san antonio that was overwhelmingly mexican-american and african-american, they were taxing themselves at the highest level allowed, but still only able to generate a few dollars, like $21 per student per capita. whereas the edgewood district, which was a wealthy white suburb of san antonio, basically taxed themselves at a much lower rate but because of property values, they were able to generate so much more hundreds of dollars per capita. so the parents, the mexican-american parents sued saying, this is fundamentally unequal. we are taxing ourselves at the highest rate but because of public policy that has devalued our property, we cannot generate enough income, enough tax dollars to adequately fund a quality education for our children. u.s. supreme court said, equality does not require equal funding. so that kind of disparity that you saw then in that we see now was blessed on high by the u.s. supreme court. host: your most recent book is the second, race and guns in a fatally unequal american -- america. 42 million african-americans in the states and according to recent statistics, 25% of them are gunowners. that is doubling in the last 10, 20 years. prof. anderson: i'm not surprised. one of the things i look at in the second was how access to guns, that antiblackness drove the second amendment, so regardless of the legal status of african-americans, enslaved, three black, denizen, which was that peace between citizen and enslaved, emancipated, african-american, jim crow african-american, civil rights movement african-american, obama african-american, regardless of that kind of legal status where we think the progress we have made, the fear of black people has created this crisis that we are looking at. it has striven the second amendment. african-americans buying guns, when you begin to think about the terror that has rained down on this society, you saw the rise of the by doing militia during obama's presidency, he saw the rise of white gun ownership during obama's presidency. then we had trump, and you saw the embrace of white nationalism, white supremacists. and you saw, because of the technology, the kind of police violence that rains down on black folk. so you have african-americans doing what they have consistently done, which is to say, we have to defend ourselves in this society, nobody is coming to help us. host: what is a book you thought you were going to write? was this something you have thought about for a while? prof. anderson: no, actually. it really was the killing of philando castile that did it. my body of work deals with human rights and civil rights in african-americans. and with -- when philando castile was gunned down by a police officer because philando castile had a license carry weapon, that is why he was gunned down, and the national rifle association went virtually silent on this killing of a man sibley because he had a gun. so you had pundits asking, don't african-americans have second amendment rights? i went, that it's a great question. that is a question that i have not explored yet. so i went hunting and i went back to the 17th century. host: what did you find? prof. anderson: hoo! i found this incredible fear of the enslaved and of free blacks and the laws coming through to try to deal with this fear, to try to protect the white community from the enslaved, from free blacks. and a key element in that was disarmament, or was the banning of access to guns. so you saw that, laws coming out of virginia and south carolina, where thou shalt not have guns for those who were enslaved and for free blacks, and you saw this coming through in the constitutional ratification conventions, where you get to virginia, and virginia is like, i'm not sure about this constitution thing, and why virginia was not sure about this constitution thing, one of the key elements, you had patrick henry and george mason saying, this militia that we need in order to keep the enslaved in check, james madison has put control of that thing under the federal government, under congress. so we cannot rely upon the feds to defend us when the enslaved rise up. the federal government has folks from life pennsylvania and massachusetts. they are not going to be coming down to defend us. so we need to have the protection or we will be left defenseless. they basically threatened to scuttle ratification. when that did not work, they threatened to hold a new constitutional convention. madison was scared out of his bujeebers. the articles of confederation had not worked. they worked through this new constitution that gave the federal government enhanced powers, but there was this fear that the federal government was too powerful, and this is why we have in the first congress the bill of rights. when you think about that bill of rights, freedom of religion, the right to not be illegally searched and seized, the right to a speedy and fair trial, the right not to have cruel and unusual punishment, the right to a well regulated militia for the security of a free state? that thing is an outlier. that outlier is basically the bribe to the south to not hold a new constitutional convention. it is to say, you are protected, the militia is safe. host: where are you surprised about what you found about the second amendment? prof. anderson: yes, i really was. because so much of our discussion today about the second amendment is about the individual right to bear arms, or was this really about a militia? we get this binary going on. is it about individual rights coming out of the heller decision and then the mcdonald decision? or is this about the militia, which the courts had long held that this was really about a militia? but that argument, that binary argument is irrelevant. it is irrelevant because the foundation of the second amendment is the fear of blackness, the fear of black people, defining african-americans as criminal, as a threat, as dangerous, as violent, and that the white community has to be protected. and i went, wow. that is when things began to make sense in its own weird way. so as i walk through this book, i even take us into the 20th and 21st century and i'm seeing the ways we understand citizenship through gun rights. open carry. castle doctrine, able to defend your home against an invader. i just blanked. [laughter] but those kinds of doctrines that become foundational. stand your ground. those kinds of doctrines that become foundational, when they are applied to african-americans, they don't hold. and i went, wow. so i have examples of like to me or vice, who was in an open carry state, 12-year-old playing in a park by himself with a toy gun. rented it did not have the little red tip that says i'm a toy, but ohio is an open carry state that says as long as you are not threatening anyone, you can carry your weapon openly. police pulled up and within two seconds, they shot tamia rice down. he was dangerous, he was a threat. then i juxtaposed to me to kyle rittenhouse, where you have a 17-year-old who hasn't ar-15, stalls by the police officers in kenosha when there is a black lives matter protest and the police are like, we are glad you guys are here. you want some water? it is hot out here. he then shoots three people. two of them he kills. he walks back toward the police officers with his hands up. they don't see threat, they don't see danger. they are not afraid. that speaks volumes about the second amendment. host: are you a gun person prior to writing your most recent book? prof. anderson: a gun person? no. it was not like i was pro-gun or anti-gun. i was just here. like i said, it was this discussion about philando castile that really sent me down this path of really trying to find -- to african-americans have second amendment rights? i think always -- always is a hard word, but i have generally been one that has said, we need to be reasonable about guns. the semiautomatic weapons being readily available to civilians makes no sense to me. you cannot hunt within ar-15 and eat the near afterwards -- the d eer afterwards. ar-15's are for hunting people. the basic logic is in there. i have been there on the basic logic. host: welcome back to the book tv in-depth studio, this is the first time in 2.5 years that we have been back with a guest in the studio and we are pleased that it is professor and author carol anderson. if you have been listening, you have heard some of the topics. your participation is key on book tv. here's how you can get through. here are the phone numbers. if you live in the east or central time zones, 202-748-8200. if you live in the mountain or pacific time zones, 202-748-8201. if you cannot get through on the phone over like to make a comment via text, here is the text number for text messages only. include your first name under city. 202-748-8903. we will also scroll through our social media sites. twitter, facebook. just remember, at book tv if you would like to make a comment on any of those sites. we will begin taking those in a few minutes. how long have you been at emory? prof. anderson: i got there in 2009, from the university of missouri, where i was there for 13 years. host: why did you transplant herself to georgia? prof. anderson: emory is an amazing university. and it was an opportunity to really grow and thrive, and to be in a place surrounded by scholars who are asking really tough, hard questions, and seeking the answers. then there's atlanta. which is an amazing city. host: missouri, columbia, atlanta. where did you start life? prof. anderson: i started in columbus, ohio. that is not accurate, my father was in the military, so i was born on an army base, then we lived in germany for several years, then when he retired from the military after 20 plus years , he moved to columbus, ohio because he wanted my brother to go to ohio state. that is where i did a lot of my growing up. host: where did you go to school? prof. anderson: i went to school, my undergrad and my masters are at miami university, and oxford, ohio, and my phd is from the ohio state university. host: why did you decide to become a scholar? what appealed to you about getting a phd? prof. anderson: i love learning. there were always folks in our home -- books in our home and discussions about what was happening in the world, about politics, civil rights, injustice. it was me trying to figure this thing out. i had wonderful mentors along the way that really helped me figure out how to become a scholar. there was alan engel, who was my con law professor at miami. i know this is going to be hard to believe but we were going over some case and i popped off, and he went, miss anderson, may i see you after class? i'm going through that, oh my gosh, an getting ready to get thrown out of this class, it is a five hour class, i'm going to lose full-time status. rolling through my head. i walk up to him after class and he said, have you ever thought about going to graduate school? i went, yes, but i have no idea how to get there. he's like, come with me. having mentors like that who helped shepherd me through what can be an opaque process was instrumental. it was that natural love of learning. i was one of those kids who would read the world book encyclopedia, then read it all over again just in case i missed something. host: what do you teach? prof. anderson: i teach the civil rights movement. i teach 20th century african-american history. i teach war crimes and genocide. i teach american human rights policy. i teach the black athlete in american society. at one point, i taught u.s. cold war foreign policy. host: let's go back to your home state