Michael Eric Dyson – författare

A Pivotal Encounter That Transformed Race Relations in AmericaNamed a 2018 Notable Work of Nonfiction by The Washington PostNOW A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Winner, The 2018 Southern Book PrizeIn 1963, a meeting between Attorney General Robert Kennedy and black luminaries James Baldwin, Lorraine Hansberry, Kenneth Clark, and Jerome Smith forever altered the course of the civil rights movement. Smith''s unfiltered fury at the nation''s racist tendencies left Kennedy deeply shaken, prompting him to empathize with the black experience and catalyzing a shift in his policies.What Truth Sounds Like explores this pivotal encounter and the conflicts it laid bare – between conscience and politics, morality and power – in addressing race. Every major argument about race that persists today, from dissent and patriotism to the responsibility of black leaders in effecting change, was heard in that room.Bestselling author Michael Eric Dyson masterfully refracts our present racial divisions through the prism of this historic meeting. A tour de force of searing prose and seminal brilliance, the book offers a compelling look at the intersections of race, democracy, and the ongoing struggle for social justice.Hailed as "a work of searing prose and seminal brilliance" by Joy-Ann Reid and "a beautifully written book" by Chris Matthews, What Truth Sounds Like is a must-read for anyone grappling with the state of race relations in America today.

NOW A NEW YORK TIMES, USA TODAY, AND PUBLISHER''S WEEKLY BESTSELLER"Dyson writes with the affection of a fan but the rigor of an academic. ... Using extensive passages from Jay-Z’s lyrics, ''Made in America'' examines the rapper’s role as a poet, an aesthete, an advocate for racial justice and a business, man, but devotes much of its energy to Hova the Hustler." —Allison Stewart, The Washington Post"Dyson''s incisive analysis of JAY-Z''s brilliance not only offers a brief history of hip-hop''s critical place in American culture, but also hints at how we can best move forward." —QuestloveJAY-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.This book wrestles with the biggest themes of JAY-Z''s career, including hustling, and it recognizes the way that he’s always weaved politics into his music, making important statements about race, criminal justice, black wealth and social injustice. As he enters his fifties, and to mark his thirty years as a recording artist, this is the perfect time to take a look at JAY-Z’s career and his role in making this nation what it is today.In many ways, this is JAY-Z’s America as much as it’s Pelosi’s America, or Trump’s America, or Martin Luther King’s America. JAY-Z has given this country a language to think with and words to live by.Featuring a Foreword by Pharrell

AN INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER and NAACP IMAGE AWARD NOMINEE From the New York Times bestselling author of Tears We Cannot Stop, a passionate call to America to finally reckon with race and start the journey to redemption.“Powerfully illuminating, heart-wrenching, and enlightening.” -Ibram X. Kendi, bestselling author of How to Be an Antiracist“Crushingly powerful, Long Time Coming is an unfiltered Marlboro of black pain.” -Isabel Wilkerson, bestselling author of Caste"Formidable, compelling...has much to offer on our nation’s crucial need for racial reckoning and the way forward." -Bryan Stevenson, bestselling author of Just Mercy 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 sixties. 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.Long Time Coming grapples with the cultural and social forces that have shaped our nation in the brutal crucible of race. In five beautifully argued chapters—each addressed to a black martyr from Breonna Taylor to Rev. Clementa Pinckney—Dyson traces the genealogy of anti-blackness from the slave ship to the street corner where Floyd lost his life—and where America gained its will to confront the ugly truth of systemic racism. Ending with a poignant plea for hope, Dyson’s exciting new book points the way to social redemption. Long Time Coming is a necessary guide to help America finally reckon with race.

AN INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLERThis edition includes illustrations by Everett DysonFrom the New York Times bestselling author of Tears We Cannot Stop, a passionate call to America to finally reckon with race and start the journey to redemption.“Powerfully illuminating, heart-wrenching, and enlightening.” -Ibram X. Kendi, bestselling author of How to Be an Antiracist“Crushingly powerful, Long Time Coming is an unfiltered Marlboro of black pain.” -Isabel Wilkerson, bestselling author of Caste"Formidable, compelling...has much to offer on our nation’s crucial need for racial reckoning and the way forward." -Bryan Stevenson, author of Just MercyThe 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 sixties. 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.Long Time Coming grapples with the cultural and social forces that have shaped our nation in the brutal crucible of race. In five beautifully argued chapters—each addressed to a black martyr from Breonna Taylor to Rev. Clementa Pinckney—Dyson traces the genealogy of anti-blackness from the slave ship to the street corner where Floyd lost his life—and where America gained its will to confront the ugly truth of systemic racism. Ending with a poignant plea for hope, Dyson’s exciting new book points the way to social redemption. Long Time Coming is a necessary guide to help America finally reckon with race.

A letter to Emmett Till, an excerpt from Dyson''s longer work, Long Time ComingHere 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."

"As a narrator, the reverence and tenderness Dyson communicates in his letters--addressed to victims of racist violence Elijah McClain, Emmett Till, Eric Garner, Breonna Taylor, Hadiya Pendleton, Sandra Bland, and the Rev. Clementa Pinckney--invoke the experience of listening in on a holy epistle. Don''t miss this." -- AudioFile MagazineThis program is read by Michael Eric Dyson.From the New York Times bestselling author of Tears We Cannot Stop, a passionate call to America to finally reckon with race and start the journey to redemption. 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 sixties. 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.Long Time Coming grapples with the cultural and social forces that have shaped our nation in the brutal crucible of race. In five beautifully argued chapters—each addressed to a black martyr from Breonna Taylor to Rev. Clementa Pinckney—Dyson traces the genealogy of anti-blackness from the slave ship to the street corner where Floyd lost his life—and where America gained its will to confront the ugly truth of systemic racism. Ending with a poignant plea for hope, Dyson’s exciting new book points the way to social redemption. Long Time Coming is a necessary guide to help America finally reckon with race. A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin''s Press “Antiracist demonstrations have been like love notes to the martyrs of racist terror and anti-Blackness. Michael Eric Dyson writes out these love notes in this powerfully illuminating, heart-wrenching, and enlightening book. Long Time Coming is right on time.” —Ibram X. Kendi, bestselling author of How to Be an Antiracist “Crushingly powerful, Long Time Coming is an unfiltered Marlboro of black pain.” —Isabel Wilkerson, author of Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents "Michael Eric Dyson is one of the nation’s most thoughtful and critical thinkers in social inequality and the demands of justice. Long Time Coming, his latest formidable, compelling book, has much to offer on our nation’s crucial need for racial reckoning and the way forward." —Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy

This program is read by the author"Elegantly written, Tears We Cannot Stop is powerful in several areas: moving personal recollections; profound cultural analysis; and guidance for moral redemption. A work to relish." —Toni Morrison"Here’s a sermon that’s as fierce as it is lucid. It shook me up, but in a good way. This is how it works if you’re black in America, this is what happens, and this is how it feels. If you’re black, you’ll feel a spark of recognition in every paragraph. If you’re white, Dyson tells you what you need to know—what this white man needed to know, at least. This is a major achievement. I read it and said amen." —Stephen KingAs the country grapples with racist division at a level not seen since the 1960s, one man''s voice is heard above the rest. In his New York Times op-ed piece "Death in Black and White," Michael Eric Dyson moved a nation. Isabel Wilkerson called it "an unfiltered Marlboro of black pain" and "crushingly powerful," and Beyonce tweeted about it. Now he continues to speak out in Tears We Cannot Stop—a provocative and deeply personal call for change. Dyson argues that 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. Short, emotional, literary, powerful—this is the book that all Americans who care about the current and long-burning crisis in race relations will want to read.

On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr., the prophet for racial and economic justice in America, was fatally shot while standing on the balcony of a Memphis hotel. Only hours earlier, he had ended his final public speech with the words, "I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight, that we as a people will get to the Promised Land." In this impactful book, acclaimed public intellectual Michael Eric Dyson offers a comprehensive reevaluation of the fate of America, specifically Black America, since that date. 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. April 4, 1968 takes a sweeping view of King''s death, remembering all the toil, triumph, and tribulation that led to that fateful date while anticipating the ways in which King''s legacy will affect the future of this country.

This celebration of King''s leadership challenges America to renew its commitment to his vision.