Audiobooks narrated by Michael Eric Dyson

My Father's House: An Ode to America’s Longest-Serving Black Congressman

"In this moving work, part clear-eyed assessment, part memoir, the son of iconic African American Congressman John Conyers Jr. shines a spotlight on his father and his political legacy, and reveals how, as his son, he eventually learned to leverage his own voice in a world that his father helped create. A respectful, thoughtful, yet clear-eyed reframing of a national hero’s personal and political odyssey, My Father’s House is John Conyers III's love letter to his father and a record of his own journey. Conyers reveals a towering figure in modern American political history and an ordinary family man; a leader whose work in Washington necessitated his many absences as a father from a son coming of age in Detroit. John Conyers III introduces us to John James Conyers, Jr. the legislator, who changed lives and made history, and of his equity-focused work that remains to be done. We meet Conyers the politician and mentor who worked with and counselled a network of powerbrokers—often from the family home on Seven Mile Road in the Motor City—including President Bill Clinton, Congressmen Adam Clayton Powell Jr., Charlie Rangel, Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, feminist Gloria Steinem, entertainer-activists Harry Belafonte, Berry Gordy, Stevie Wonder, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Chris Tucker and a slew of other players in Washington, DC, and across the nation. A resonant political, historical, and family story, My Father’s House explores how John James Conyers, Jr., was at once a man of deep and abiding spiritual faith, human talents, and human weaknesses. As he places his father among this land's greatest lawmakers, he also demystifies and grounds the Civil Rights giants of that era, reminding us of their noble yet deeply flawed humanity. This exploration of John James Conyers, Jr., told through John Conyers III's eyes and experiences, is essential to a thorough understanding of modern U.S. politics and the cultures and human lives it continues to shape."

John Conyers III (Author), John Conyers III, Michael Eric Dyson (Narrator)

Audiobook

Represent: The Unfinished Fight for the Vote

"Read about the electrifying and continuing fight for voting rights-and discover your place in it-in this dramatic exploration of American democracy, from renowned thought leader Michael Eric Dyson and widely celebrated author Marc Favreau. 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. Each chapter takes on a new battle between the forces of people power and forces opposed to it. Readers will meet champions of freedom, including formerly enslaved revolutionaries, a Chinese American teenager, a Lakota Sioux activist, Black World War II veterans, a Mexican American student, and others who fought for their right to vote. Drawing clear lines from then to now, Represent weaves this important struggle into a single American drama that will help readers understand our past, present, and future."

Marc Favreau, Michael Eric Dyson (Author), Michael Eric Dyson (Narrator)

Audiobook

Unequal: A Story of America

"Renowned, bestselling author Michael Eric Dyson makes his YA debut, with critically acclaimed author Marc Favreau, to deliver an urgent, enlightening account of racial inequality in America. 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. As readers meet some of the many African American people who dared to fight for a more equal future, they will also discover a framework for addressing racial injustice in their own lives. "

Marc Favreau, Michael Eric Dyson (Author), Michael Eric Dyson (Narrator)

Audiobook

Entertaining Race: Performing Blackness in America

"This program is read by the author From the New York Times bestselling author of Tears We Cannot Stop For more than thirty 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. Entertaining Race is a testament to Dyson’s consistent celebration of the outsized impact of African American culture and politics on this country. Black people were forced to entertain white people in slavery, have been forced to entertain the idea of race from the start, and must find entertaining ways to make race an object of national conversation. Dyson’s career embodies these and other ways of performing Blackness, and in these pages, ranging from 1991 to the present, he entertains race with his pen, voice and body, and occasionally, alongside luminaries like Cornel West, David Blight, Ibram X. Kendi, Master P, MC Lyte, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Alicia Garza, John McWhorter, and Jordan Peterson. Most of this work will be new to listeners, a fresh light for many of his long-time fans and an inspiring introduction for newcomers. Entertaining Race offers a compelling vision from the mind and heart of one of America’s most important and enduring voices. A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Press 'Entertaining Race is a splendid way to spend quality time reading one of the most remarkable thinkers in America today.' —Speaker Nancy Pelosi 'To read Entertaining Race is to encounter the life-long vocation of a teacher who preaches, a preacher who teaches and an activist who cannot rest until all are set free.' —Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock"

Michael Eric Dyson (Author), Michael Eric Dyson (Narrator)

Audiobook

Dear Emmett Till: An Excerpt from Long Time Coming

"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.'"

Michael Eric Dyson (Author), Michael Eric Dyson (Narrator)

Audiobook

Long Time Coming: Reckoning with Race in America

"'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 Magazine This 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"

Michael Eric Dyson (Author), Michael Eric Dyson (Narrator)

Audiobook

JAY-Z: Made in America

"This program is read by the author, and includes an introduction written by Pharrell, and read by Nick Cannon. '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.' —Questlove 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. This audiobook 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."

Michael Eric Dyson (Author), Michael Eric Dyson, Nick Cannon (Narrator)

Audiobook

What Truth Sounds Like: Robert F. Kennedy, James Baldwin, and Our Unfinished Conversation About Race

"This program is read by the author. What Truth Sounds Like is a timely exploration of America's tortured racial politics that continues the conversation from Michael Eric Dyson's New York Times bestseller Tears We Cannot Stop. President Barack Obama: 'Everybody who speaks after Michael Eric Dyson pales in comparison.” In 2015 BLM activist Julius Jones confronted Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton with an urgent query: “What in your heart has changed that’s going to change the direction of this country?” “I don’t believe you just change hearts,” she protested. “I believe you change laws.” The fraught conflict between conscience and politics – between morality and power – in addressing race hardly began with Clinton. An electrifying and traumatic encounter in the sixties crystallized these furious disputes. In 1963 Attorney General Robert Kennedy sought out James Baldwin to explain the rage that threatened to engulf black America. Baldwin brought along some friends, including playwright Lorraine Hansberry, psychologist Kenneth Clark, and a valiant activist, Jerome Smith. It was Smith’s relentless, unfiltered fury that set Kennedy on his heels, reducing him to sullen silence. Kennedy walked away from the nearly three-hour meeting angry – that the black folk assembled didn’t understand politics, and that they weren’t as easy to talk to as Martin Luther King. But especially that they were more interested in witness than policy. But Kennedy’s anger quickly gave way to empathy, especially for Smith. “I guess if I were in his shoes…I might feel differently about this country.” Kennedy set about changing policy – the meeting having transformed his thinking in fundamental ways. There was more: every big argument about race that persists to this day got a hearing in that room. Smith declaring that he’d never fight for his country given its racist tendencies, and Kennedy being appalled at such lack of patriotism, tracks the disdain for black dissent in our own time. His belief that black folk were ungrateful for the Kennedys’ efforts to make things better shows up in our day as the charge that black folk wallow in the politics of ingratitude and victimhood. The contributions of black queer folk to racial progress still cause a stir. BLM has been accused of harboring a covert queer agenda. The immigrant experience, like that of Kennedy – versus the racial experience of Baldwin – is a cudgel to excoriate black folk for lacking hustle and ingenuity. The questioning of whether folk who are interracially partnered can authentically communicate black interests persists. And we grapple still with the responsibility of black intellectuals and artists to bring about social change. What Truth Sounds Like 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. The future of race and democracy hang in the balance. More praise for What Truth Sounds Like: 'Dyson's passion for the rich African-American cultural tapestry reverberates in this audiobook.' — AudioFile Magazine “What Truth Sounds Like is a tour de force of intellectual history and cultural analysis, a poetically written work that calls on all of us to get back in that room and to resolve the racial crises we confronted more than fifty years ago.” —Harry Belafonte"

Michael Eric Dyson (Author), Michael Eric Dyson (Narrator)

Audiobook

Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America

"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 King As 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."

Michael Eric Dyson (Author), Michael Eric Dyson (Narrator)

Audiobook

April 4, 1968: Martin Luther King Jr.'s Death and How It Changed America

"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."

Michael Eric Dyson (Author), Michael Eric Dyson (Narrator)

Audiobook

Audiobooks Narrated by Michael Eric Dyson