2014 MLK Michael Dyson Community Celebration

Come join us to welcome Michael E. Dyson to Washington State University! Dyson, an American Book Award recipient and two-time NAACP Image Award winner, has been named one of the 150 most powerful African Americans by Ebony magazine. He is presently a University Professor of Sociology at Georgetown University and an analyst on MSNBC.  He also has appeared on The Today Show, Nightline, O?Reilly Factor, The Tavis Smiley Show, Real Time with Bill Maher, Rap City, Def Poetry Jam, and The Colbert Report. He has published numerous works, covering topics such as Hurricane Katrina, Tupac Shakur and rap music, and Bill Cosby and the black poor.  Related to the Civil Rights Movement, his Making Malcolm: The Myth and Meaning of Malcolm X (1994) was named one of the most important African American books of the 20th century. Dyson then wrote I May Not Get There with You: The True Martin Luther King, Jr. (2000), which made a significant contribution to King scholarship by recovering the radical legacy of the slain civil rights leader.  In 2008, he published a second book on King, The New York Times best-selling April 4, 1968: Martin Luther King Jr.?s Death and How It Changed America, which was hailed by The Washington Post as ?an excellent sociological primer on institutionalized racism in America.? Dyson has taught at Brown University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania.  He is currently a distinguished professor of sociology at Georgetown University. His fiery speaking style led a Chronicle of Higher Education reporter to write that with his rhetorical gifts, he ?can rock the classroom and the chapelalike.? The speeches by Nash and Dyson will be followed by a book signing in the Sr. Ballroom.