Anderson is a Professor of African American Studies at Emory University, where her research and teaching focus on public policy and the politics of race, justice, and equality in the United States. Her previous books include Eyes Off the Prize: The United Nations and the African-American Struggle for Human Rights, 1944-1955, and Bourgeois Radicals: The NAACP and the Struggle for Colonial Liberation, 1941-1960. She has served on working groups at the United Nations and the Aspen Institute, and as a member of the Historical Advisory Committee for the U.S. State Department. 

Johnson became President in 1865, upon the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, and he served until 1869. His Reconstruction policies prioritized keeping the former slave states within the fold, and he vetoed many of the Congressional acts that would have guaranteed rights for African Americans, making no secret of his racist views. Anderson is sharply critical of Johnson as a figure with the power to move the country forward after the Civil War, and who instead capitulated to the regressive demands of white rage. 

The Chicago Defender, owned by Robert S. Abbott, was the nation's foremost black newspaper in the early 20th century, and a driving force in the Great Migration.