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Carol Anderson

Associate Professor
A.B., M.A. Miami University
Ph.D., The Ohio State University
areas: Diplomatic, U.S. 20th-century, African American
office: 217 Read Hall
phone: (573) 882-8932
email: andersonce@missouri.edu

Research Interests

Associate Professor Carol Anderson is fascinated by policy. She is particularly intrigued with the ways that domestic and international policies intersect through the issues of race, justice, and equality. Her first book, Eyes Off the Prize: The United Nations and the African American Struggle for Human Rights explores how the Cold War, anti-communism, Southern Democrats, the development of the UN, and international human rights affected the struggle for black equality in the United States. In her forthcoming book, Bourgeois Radicals: The NAACP and the Struggle for Colonial Liberation, 1941-1960, she is uncovering the long-hidden role of the nation’s most powerful civil rights organization in fighting for the liberation of peoples of color in Africa and Asia. To date, her research has garnered substantial support from the American Council of Learned Societies, the Ford Foundation, the Gilder Lehrman Institute for the Study of American History, the Eisenhower Foundation, and the Council for Institutional Cooperation.

Teaching Interests

Professor Anderson’s regularly scheduled courses include

  • History 1200 (American Survey from 1865),
  • History 3200 (Black Freedom Movement),
  • History 4250 (U.S. Foreign Policy: 1898-1945),
  • History 4260 (U.S. Foreign Policy during the Cold War),
  • History 4270 (Afro-Americans in the 20th Century), and
  • History 8455 and 8456 (Graduate Readings and Research Seminar in Diplomatic History).

She has also offered undergraduate research seminars and topic courses on American Human Rights Policy, the Black Athlete in American Society, and War Crimes & Genocide.

Book Awards

Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award
Myrna Bernath Book Award
Truman Book Award finalist
W.E.B. Du Bois Book Award finalist

Research Awards

American Council of Learned Societies
Ford Foundation
Gilder Lehrman Institute for the Study of American History
Council for Institutional Co-operation
Eisenhower Foundation
Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute
The Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History at Harvard
The National Humanities Center (declined)

Teaching Awards

The Maxine Christopher Shutz Award for Distinguished Teaching
William T. Kemper Fellowship for Excellence in Teaching
Most Inspiring Professor Award, Athletics Department
Gold Chalk Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching, Graduate and Professional Council
Provost’s Teaching Award for Junior Faculty

Selected Publications

Eyes Off the Prize: The United Nations and the African American Struggle for Human Rights, 1944-1955 (Cambridge University Press, 2003).

Bleached Souls and Red Negroes: The NAACP and Black Communists in the Early Cold War, 1948-1952, Window on Freedom: Race, Civil Rights, and Foreign Affairs, 1945-1988, ed., Brenda Gayle Plummer (University of North Carolina Press, 2003).

From Hope to Disillusion: African Americans, the United Nations, and the Struggle for Human Rights, 1941-1947, Diplomatic History. Reprinted in The African-American Voice in U.S. Foreign Policy, ed., Michael Krenn.

Clutching at Civil Rights Straws: A Reappraisal of the Truman Years and the Struggle for African American Citizenship, 1945-1953, in Harry’s Farewell: Interpreting and Teaching the Truman Presidency, ed., Richard Kirkendall (University of Missouri Press, 2004).

 

 

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Carol Anderson
Carol Anderson

book jacket
Eyes Off the Prize