Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, a Georgetown University sociologist, author and cultural critic of contemporary issues’ impact on the African-American community, will speak at California State University, Fresno, as a guest of its Martin Luther King Jr. Visiting Scholars Committee.
Dyson has written 16 books, including the acclaimed “April 4, 1968: Martin Luther King Jr.’s Death and How It Changed America,” “Holler if You Hear Me, Is Bill Cosby Right?” and “I May Not Get There With You: The True Martin Luther King Jr.”
His topics have ranged from biographies of performers Tupac Shakur and Marvin Gaye to examinations of issues of gender, class and generation within the African-American community in the post Civil Rights Era.
Dyson won an American Book Award in 2007 for his “Holler if You Can Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster,” published in December 2005, just three months after the devastating hurricane. He writes that delayed federal response to the disaster had its roots in historical and contemporary marginalizing of poor blacks, a topic that provoked broad, sometimes heated discussion.
Dyson was named by Ebony magazine as one of the 100 most-influential black Americans.
At Fresno State, Dyson will speak at 7 p.m. March 14 at the Satellite Student Union. His presentation is free and open to the public.
The lecture is sponsored by USU Productions and Associated Students Inc.
