Uploaded March 2023 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Strand is honored to present Michael Eric Dyson in celebration of his new book, What Truth Sounds Like: Robert F. Kennedy, James Baldwin, and Our Unfinished Conversation About Race in America. This book is a follow-up to his bestseller Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America, and is another timely exploration of America's tortured racial politics.
Following his 2017 bestseller Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America, What Truth Sounds Like: Robert F. Kennedy, James Baldwin, and Our Unfinished Conversation About Race in America highlights a pivotal moment in America’s recent past. In May, 1963 a leading politician ended up learning more than he had bargained for when he asked America’s then hottest writer, and his friends over for a chat about black America’s rage. RFK walked away from the nearly three-hour meeting livid – that the black folk assembled didn’t understand politics, and that they weren’t as easy to talk to as Martin Luther King. But Kennedy’s anger quickly gave way to empathy. Kennedy set about changing policy – the meeting having transformed his thinking in fundamental ways. Every big argument about race that persists to this day got a hearing in that room: disdain for black dissent, the belief that black folk wallow in the politics of ingratitude and victimhood, and that they lack hustle and ingenuity.
In What Truth Sounds Like, Dr. Dyson deftly merges this past and our present to explore 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. What Truth Sounds Like examines key players today – ranging from Jay-Z to Jordan Peele and LeBron James, from Black Lives Matter to #MeToo, from Ta-Nehisi Coates to Kamala Harris. And he ends with a paean to Wakanda – the all too mythical nation celebrated in “Black Panther”: “If Baldwin and his glorious crew could gather again, they could hardly have a better place to reconvene and let the beautiful momentum of blackness wash over them as they sought to make America truly great. For the first time.”
Join us at the New School's 12th Street Auditorium as Michael sits down with writer/activist Shaun King and singer/activist Harry Belafonte. This event is co-sponsored by the Executive Dean's Office of the Schools of Public Engagement at The New School as part of the See Me After Class series. Executive Dean Mary Watson will provide opening remarks.
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Shared for historical purposes. I do own the rights.
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Strand is honored to present Michael Eric Dyson in celebration of his new book, What Truth Sounds Like: Robert F. Kennedy, James Baldwin, and Our Unfinished Conversation About Race in America. This book is a follow-up to his bestseller Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America, and is another timely exploration of America's tortured racial politics.
Following his 2017 bestseller Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America, What Truth Sounds Like: Robert F. Kennedy, James Baldwin, and Our Unfinished Conversation About Race in America highlights a pivotal moment in America’s recent past. In May, 1963 a leading politician ended up learning more than he had bargained for when he asked America’s then hottest writer, and his friends over for a chat about black America’s rage. RFK walked away from the nearly three-hour meeting livid – that the black folk assembled didn’t understand politics, and that they weren’t as easy to talk to as Martin Luther King. But Kennedy’s anger quickly gave way to empathy. Kennedy set about changing policy – the meeting having transformed his thinking in fundamental ways. Every big argument about race that persists to this day got a hearing in that room: disdain for black dissent, the belief that black folk wallow in the politics of ingratitude and victimhood, and that they lack hustle and ingenuity.
In What Truth Sounds Like, Dr. Dyson deftly merges this past and our present to explore 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. What Truth Sounds Like examines key players today – ranging from Jay-Z to Jordan Peele and LeBron James, from Black Lives Matter to #MeToo, from Ta-Nehisi Coates to Kamala Harris. And he ends with a paean to Wakanda – the all too mythical nation celebrated in “Black Panther”: “If Baldwin and his glorious crew could gather again, they could hardly have a better place to reconvene and let the beautiful momentum of blackness wash over them as they sought to make America truly great. For the first time.”
Join us at the New School's 12th Street Auditorium as Michael sits down with writer/activist Shaun King and singer/activist Harry Belafonte. This event is co-sponsored by the Executive Dean's Office of the Schools of Public Engagement at The New School as part of the See Me After Class series. Executive Dean Mary Watson will provide opening remarks.
-----
Reelblack TWO, is our backup YouTube Channel that carries New Original content plus Classics from The Reelblack Vault that will be monetized. We ask that you subscribe there. youtube.com/ReelblackTwo
Please buy Reelblack merchandise, make a donation through PayPal or by join our Patreon so that we can have the resources necessary to keep the channel growing.
Please join our mailing list by sending an email to reelblackinc@live.com and follow us on social media @reelblack so that you can stay informed of future projects created outside of this platform.
Merch: reelblack-shop.fourthwall.com
Donate via CashApp $Reelblack or PayPal.me/Reelblack
Support us monthly via patreon.com/Reelblack
Twitter TikTok and Instagram @Reelblack
Shared for historical purposes. I do own the rights.
#####
Reelblack's mission is to educate, entertain enlighten, and empower through film. If there is content shared on this platform that you feel infringes on your intellectual property, please email me at Reelblack@mail.com and info@reelblack.com with details and it will be promptly removed.
