[2] Fredrickson was born on July 16, 1934, in Bristol, Connecticut, and spent most of his early life in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
He attended high school in South Dakota and was accepted into Harvard University where he graduated magna cum laude in 1956.
"[7] In the foreword of Racism: A Short History republished in 2015, Stanford historian Albert M. Camarillo discusses the courses that he co-wrote and taught with Fredrickson.
They developed a survey course called "Race and Ethnicity in the American Experience" that "examined how ideologies of race were manifested in societal institutions and policies that shaped the socioeconomic statues of communities of color in North America from the colonial era (British and Spanish) through the twentieth century.
He published eight books: Fredrickson's Racism: A Short History captured his conception "of racial inequality and racism, as ideology and practice in Western societies over the past half millennium," and how it is "based on the three primary components: ideas of racial purity, cultural essentialism or particularism, and a 'them' vs. 'us' mindset in which difference and power (and powerlessness) structured racist regimes.
"[10] His essays and articles included expanding on themes of comparative ideology on racism in the United States and South Africa.