Showing results by author "Michael Eric Dyson" in All Categories

One of the most important and least understood true stories of our nation, the fight for representation is an ongoing and epic quest to build the democracy sketched out in the Constitution but unfinished in the twenty-first century. With impeccable research and exhilarating prose, Represent tells the story of voting rights in the United States from the American Revolution up to the present day.

In this “vital, necessary, and beautiful book” (Michael Eric Dyson), antiracist educator Robin DiAngelo deftly illuminates the phenomenon of white fragility and “allows us to understand racism as a practice not restricted to 'bad people'" (Claudia Rankine). Referring to the defensive moves white people make when challenged racially, white fragility is characterized by emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt and by behaviors including argumentation and silence. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium and prevent meaningful cross-racial dialogue.

The true story of racial inequality—and resistance to it—is the prologue to our present. You can see it in where we live, where we go to school, where we work, in our laws, and in our leadership. Unequal presents a gripping account of the struggles that shaped America and the insidiousness of racism, and demonstrates how inequality persists.

Tupac Amaru Shakur (1971–1996) was an American rap artist, actor, and social activist. More than seventy-five million of his albums have sold worldwide, making him one of the bestselling music artists in the world. Rolling Stone magazine named him the 86th Greatest Artist of All Time.

Shakur also gained notoriety for his conflicts with the law and time spent in prison.

The night of May 25, 2020 changed America. George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, was killed during an arrest in Minneapolis when a White cop suffocated him. The video of that night’s events went viral, sparking the largest protests in the nation’s history and the sort of social unrest we have not seen since the '60s. While Floyd’s death was certainly the catalyst (heightened by the fact that it occurred during a pandemic whose victims were disproportionately of color), it was in truth the fuse that lit an ever-filling powder keg.

A provocative, lively deep dive into the meaning of America's first Black president and first Black presidency, from "one of the most graceful and lucid intellectuals writing on race and politics today" (

Vanity Fair).

This audiobook exists at the tense intersection of the conflict between politics and prophecy - of whether we embrace political resolution or moral redemption to fix our fractured racial landscape.

Fifty years ago Malcolm X told a White woman who asked what she could do for the cause, "Nothing." Dyson believes he was wrong. In Tears We Cannot Stop, he responds to that question. If we are to make real racial progress, we must face difficult truths, including being honest about how Black grievance has been ignored, dismissed, or discounted.

Jay-Z: Made in America is the fruit of Michael Eric Dyson’s decade of teaching the work of one of the greatest poets this nation has produced, as gifted a wordsmith as Walt Whitman, Robert Frost and Rita Dove. But as a rapper, he’s sometimes not given the credit he deserves for just how great an artist he’s been for so long.

For more than 30 years, Michael Eric Dyson has played a prominent role in the nation as a public intellectual, university professor, cultural critic, social activist and ordained Baptist minister. He has presented a rich and resourceful set of ideas about American history and culture. Now for the first time he brings together the various components of his multihued identity and eclectic pursuits.

Emmy Award-nominated journalist David Montero follows the trail of the massive wealth amassed by Northern corporations throughout America’s history of enslavement. It has long been maintained by many that the North wasn’t complicit in the horrors of slavery. The truth, however, is that large Northern banks were critical to the financing of slavery; that they saw their fortunes rise dramatically from their involvement in the business of enslavement; and that white business leaders and their surrounding communities created enormous wealth from the enslavement and abuse of Black bodies.

In Articulate While Black, two renowned scholars of Black Language address language and racial politics in the U.S. through an insightful examination of President Barack Obama's language use--and America's response to it. In this eloquently written and powerfully argued book, H. Samy Alim and Geneva Smitherman provide new insights about President Obama and the relationship between language and race in contemporary society.

America's leading young black intellectual reveals the hidden rules of race that dominate politics, society, and cultural life. The author discusses the state of Black leadership; the Black Church and sex; Black youth, pop culture, and the politics of nostalgia; why in a color-blind society race will continue to rule; and other important issues. Michael Eric Dyson, former welfare father, and now an ordained Baptist Minster and Princeton Ph.D., is professor of Communications Studies at the University of North Carolina.

The extraordinary partnership of Barack Obama and Joe Biden is unique in American history. The two men, their characters and styles sharply contrasting, formed a dynamic working relationship that evolved into a profound friendship. Their affinity was not predestined. Obama and Biden began wary of each other: Obama an impatient freshman disdainful of the Senate's plodding ways; Biden a veteran of the chamber and proud of its traditions.

A provocative look at what it means to be Black today. This audiobook includes excerpts from over 100 interviews with Rev. Jesse Jackson, Cornel West, Skip Gates, Melissa Harris-Perry, Kara Walker, Kehinde Wiley, Glenn Ligon, Malcolm Gladwell, Paul Mooney, NY Gov. David Paterson, Harold Ford, Jr., Soledad O'Brien, Kamala Harris, Chuck D, Questlove, and others.

"Don't hate…appreciate." This original and dynamic presentation breaks down the imperativeness of our need to understand the underlying messages between the different socio-economic classes in black America, in order to move forward as a people.

There are few figures and leaders of recent American history of greater social and political consequence than Jesse Jackson, and few more relevant for America’s current political climate. In the 1960s, Jackson served as a close aide to Dr. Martin Luther King, meeting him on the notorious march to legitimate the American democratic system in Selma, and continued his political legacy, inspiring a generation of Black and Latino politicians and activists. In I Am Somebody, David Masciotra argues that Jackson’s legacy must be rehabilitated in the history of American politics.

At the 40th anniversary of King's assassination, acclaimed public intellectual Michael Eric Dyson gives a comprehensive reevaluation of the fate of America, specifically Black America. Ambitiously and controversially, he investigates the ways in which we as a people have made it to that Promised Land King spoke of, and the many areas in which we still have a long way to go.

A letter to Emmett Till, an excerpt from Dyson's longer work, Long Time Coming. Here is a passionate call to America to finally reckon with race and start the journey to redemption. As Dyson notes: "Rarely has the tragic fact of Black death been as urgently in need of interpretation and engagement as in this moment."

Cole has heard it all before - token, bougie, oreo, Blackish - the things we call the kids like him. Black kids who grow up in white spaces, living at an intersection of race and class that many doubt exists. He needed to get far away from the preppy site of his upbringing before he could make sense of it all. Through a series of personal anecdotes and interviews with his peers, Cole transports us to his adolescence and explores what it's like to be young and in search of identity.