Michael Eric Dyson Speaking Fee: $20,000 to $30,000

​Michael Eric Dyson is one of the nation’s mostrenowned professors, gifted writers, inspiring preachers, knowledgeable lecturers, and prominentmedia personalities. As a teacher who earned a PhD in Religion from Princeton University, Dyson has taught at some of the nation’s most distinguished universities, including Brown, UNC Chapel Hill, Columbia, DePaul, the University of Pennsylvania, and Georgetown University. He is presently Distinguished University Professor of African American and Diaspora Studies, College of Arts & Science, and Distinguished University Professor of Ethics and Society, The Divinity School, and NEH Centennial Chair at Vanderbilt University. Dyson is one of America’s premier public intellectuals and author of over 25 books, including seven New York Times bestsellers. Dyson’s esteemed literary output won him the 2020 Langston Hughes Medal, which in the past was awarded to James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, and August Wilson. Dyson has also won an American Book Award, a Southern Book Award, and two NAACP Image Awards. Dyson has written bestselling volumes on Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, 2Pac, Marvin Gaye, Bill Cosby, and Barack Obama. Among his notable publications are Reflecting Black: African AmericanCultural Criticism, his pioneering book of Black cultural studies, I May Not Get There with You: The True Martin Luther King, Jr., his first book on the civil rights icon that probed his radical dimensions, Holler if You Hear Me: Searching for Tupac Shakur, which, according to Publisher’s Weekly helped to prove that hip hop books are commercially viable, and Is Bill Cosby Right? Or Has the Black Middle Class Lost Its Mind? which helped to renew a conversation on class in Black America. Dyson’s book on Cosby, and his popular volume, Why I Love Black Women, both won prestigious NAACP Image Awards for nonfiction. Dyson’s New York Times bestselling The Black Presidency: Barack Obama and the Politics of Race in America, has been described by the New York Times as “an interpretive miracle” and was a finalist for the prestigious 2016 Kirkus Prize. His New York Timesbestselling Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America, was called by the New York Times, “one of the most frank and searing discussions on race…adeeply serious, urgent book, which should take its place in the tradition of Baldwin’s The Fire Next Timeand King’s Why We Can’t Wait.” The book won the2018 Southern Book Prize. Dyson’s Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster won the American Book Award. Dyson’s New York Times bestseller What Truth Sounds Like: RFK, James Baldwin and Our Unfinished Conversation on Race in America, has been called by Kirkus Review “an incisive look at the role of politicians, artists, intellectuals, and activists in confronting racial injustice and effecting change,” and an “eloquent response to an urgent – and still-unresolved – dilemma.” The book was named by the Washington Post as one of the “50 notable works of nonfiction in 2018.” Dyson’s book, JAY-Z: Made in America, was also a New York Times bestseller. The Washington Post, (which named the book one of the 50 notable works of nonfiction in 2019), said that the “eminent cultural critic delivers a fleshed-out portrait of one of the country’s biggest rappers – and one of its biggest self-made men,” and that Dyson “writes with the affection of a fan but the rigor of an academic.” The book won Dyson an African American Literary Award as “Author of the Year.” In December 2020, published Long Time Coming: Reckoning with Race in America, which Robin DiAngelo calls a “searing cry for racial justice from one of our nation’s greatest thinkers and most compelling prophets.” Kirkus Review says it is a “sweeping overview of racism in America” and a “timely, fervent message from an important voice,”while Publishers Weekly says that it is “[r]ich with feeling and insight, this elegiac account hits home.” Dyson’s book Entertaining Race: Performing Blackness in America, was published in November 2021. Kirkus Review says, “Dyson writes with a broad, well-learned view of Black history” in what it concludes is a “thoughtful, elegantly argued contribution to the literature of Black lives in America.” Publisher’s Weekly says that “Dyson maintains a firm grip on the cultural moment and offers razor-sharp insights into American history, politics, and art. This is a feast of insights.” The New York Timessays that “Dyson’s work clearly comes from a deep well of love — for his country, for his people and for the intellectual and cultural figures he admires…Known for extemporizing full speeches and sermons without notes, Dyson plays in the space betweenpreacher and poet…There is also a stylistic performance taking place within the pages of the book: that of the public Black intellectual demonstrating that he is erudite yet still hip, referencing philosophers and theorists like Kant, Derrida and Foucault while also name-checking rappers like Nas and Jay-Z….Dyson’s fans may relish…his more signature style, full of the alliteration and anaphora that mark the best of Black oratory and written word.” The book was named an Amazon editor’s pick for best books in November, a Kirkus Review best book of the year, and a Kirkus Review best book on race in 2021. Dyson’s book, Unequal: A Story of America,published in May 2022, is a volume for young readers penned with renowned writer and editor Marc Favreau.Publishers Weekly says that this “searing look at attempts to block students ‘from learning the truth of inequality in the United States’ encourages readers to acknowledge the deep-seated presence of structural racism in American. A must-read and must-teach.”And Kirkus Review says that this “accessible, riveting collection will inspire readers to claim responsibility for helping to ensure that the U.S. one day lives up to its most ethical professed ideas.” Dyson’s most recent book, Represent: The Unfinished Fight for the Vote, penned again with Marc Favreau, has garnered rave reviews. In a starred review, Kirkus Review says that it is a “concise, readable account of the struggle for equality, freedom, and democracy in the U.S.” In another starred review, for Booklist, the book is lauded for tracing “the long and even violent fight for women’s, Black, Latinx, Asian American, and Native American suffrage,” and is praised as an “eye-opening narrative.” And in a starred review for Publishers Weekly, Represent is celebrated as a “relevant and inspiring account [that] shows how the past is not as far removed as one may think.”