Social Cohesion Dialogue

Carol Anderson, PhD, is the Charles Howard Candler Professor of African American Studies at Emory University and is the author of “White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Nation's Divide,” a New York Times Bestseller, Washington Post Notable Book of 2016, and a National Book Critics Circle Award winner. Anderson is a public scholar who has served on working groups dealing with race, minority rights, and criminal justice at Stanford University, the United Nations, and as a member of the U.S. State Department’s Historical Advisory Committee. Her research focuses how policy is made and unmade, how racial inequality and racism affect that process and outcome, and how those who have taken the brunt of those laws, executive orders, and directives have worked to shape, reframe and when necessary, dismantle legal and political structures used to limit rights and humanity. Anderson has authored multiple books, including “Eyes Off the Prize: The United Nations and the African American Struggle for Human Rights,” “1944-1955 and “One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression is Destroying Our Democracy.”

Sarah Smarsh, MFA, is the author of “Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth,” which became instant New York Times Bestseller and was a finalist for the 2018 National Book Award. She has covered socioeconomic class, politics, and public policy for the Guardian, the New York Times, the Texas Observer, Pacific Standard, the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, and many other publications. Smarsh is a fellow of the Center for Kansas Studies and has led or contributed to creative, public projects funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Kansas Humanities Council, the Kansas Arts Commission and others. A recent Joan Shorenstein Fellow at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and a former professor of nonfiction writing, Smarsh is a frequent speaker and media commentator on economic inequality.