WE ARE NOT YET EQUAL

“It is time to rethink America.”

Adapted from Anderson’s bestselling White Rage (2016), this book summons young people to bear witness to the devastatingly expansive strategies white citizens have taken up to preserve the racialized violence that emerged from the founding of the nation. What is white rage? White rage works “subtly, almost imperceptibly” in American halls of power, utilizing an array of policy assaults, legal contortions, and physical violence to punish black resolve and block efforts toward full and equal citizenship. Anderson writes in an accessible narrative form, showing young people through pivotal historical events the ways in which white rage has been able to effectively undermine black-led social movements for equality and justice. It begins with the rise of the 19th-century Black Codes and the emergence of Jim Crow during the betrayal of Reconstruction. It continues into the Great Migration, when many black families chose to move North for opportunities and were met with extreme racist violence from white hate groups. The text carries us up to the current president and is enhanced by archival photographs. In her foreword, celebrated young adult author Nic Stone (Odd One Out, 2018, etc.) reminds us that it’s not just about exposing the roots of American racism, but what we do about it now.

Revealing our racialized past and arguing that we must refashion our nation in pursuit of a new, beloved, and just society.