On January 6, 2021, armed insurrectionists besieged the United States Capitol in the name of patriotism. To some, it was an unexpected and shocking attack on democracy. To others, it was a noble attempt to rescue a nation on the brink of collapse. For Carol Anderson, the insurrection was a predictable coda to more than two centuries of American mythology. What happens, she asks, when we discover that the history we teach our children is comprised of fables not facts; when the gulf between soaring rhetoric and cynical policy is too wide to ignore; when white supremacy is allowed to thrive? In I, Too, we embark on a journey to shine a light on stories that reveal how we reached this inflection point in American history, as we strive to narrow the gap between who we say we are as a nation…and who we actually are.
I, Too is a co-production of the Bertelsmann Foundation and Humanity in Action, with generous support from the Donner Foundation. The film was shot on location in Wilmington, North Carolina; Washington, DC; Ocoee, Florida; North Augusta, South Carolina; and Atlanta, Georgia.
About Carol Anderson:
Carol Anderson is the Charles Howard Candler Professor of African American Studies at Emory University and author of White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide, a New York Times Bestseller, Washington Post Notable Book of 2016, and a National Book Critics Circle Award winner. She is also the author of Eyes Off the Prize: The United Nations and the African American Struggle for Human Rights, 1944-1955; Bourgeois Radicals: The NAACP and the Struggle for Colonial Liberation, 1941-1960, and One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression is Destroying Our Democracy, which was long-listed for the National Book Award and a finalist for the PEN/Galbraith Award in non-fiction.
