Michael Eric Dyson

Michael Eric Dyson (born October 23, 1958) is an American academic, author, Baptist minister, and radio host. He is a professor in the College of Arts and Science and in the Divinity School at Vanderbilt University. He attended Cranbrook School in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, on an academic scholarship but left and completed his education at Northwestern High School. He became an ordained Baptist minister at nineteen years of age. Having worked in factories in Detroit to support his family, he entered Knoxville College as a freshman at the age of twenty-one. Dyson received his bachelor's degree, magna cum laude, from Carson–Newman College in 1985.

Career Professor Dyson has taught at Chicago Theological Seminary, Brown University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Columbia University, DePaul University, and the University of Pennsylvania. In 2021, Dyson moved to Vanderbilt University where he holds the Centennial Chair and serves as University Distinguished Professor of African American and Diaspora Studies in the College of Arts and Science and University Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Society in the Divinity School. Between 2016 and 2018, he was a visiting professor at Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont.

Author His 1994 book Making Malcolm: The Myth and Meaning of Malcolm X became a New York Times notable book of the year. In his 2006 book Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster, Dyson analyzes the political and social events in the wake of the catastrophe against the backdrop of an overall "failure in race and class relations". In 2010, Dyson edited Born to Use Mics: Reading Nas's Illmatic, with contributions based on the album's tracks by, among others, Kevin Coval, Kyra D. Gaunt ("Professor G"), dream hampton, Marc Lamont Hill, Adam Mansbach, and Mark Anthony Neal. Dyson's own essay in this anthology, One Love', Two Brothers, Three Verses", argues that the current US penal system disfavors young black males more than any other segment of the population. His last three books appeared repeatedly on the New York Times Bestseller list.

Commentator Dyson hosted a radio show, which aired on Radio One, from January 2006 to February 2007. He is also a commentator on National Public Radio, MSNBC and CNN, and is a regular guest on Real Time with Bill Maher. Beginning in July 2015, Dyson became a political analyst for MSNBC. In May 2018, he participated in the Munk debate on political correctness, arguing alongside Michelle Goldberg against Stephen Fry and Jordan Peterson. In August 2018, Dyson spoke at the funeral of Aretha Franklin.

The Michael Eric Dyson Show radio program debuted on April 6, 2009, and was broadcast from Morgan State University. The show's first guest was Oprah Winfrey, to whom Dyson dedicated his 2009 book Can You Hear Me Now? The Inspiration, Wisdom, and Insight of Michael Eric Dyson. The show appears to have been discontinued, with its last episode being in December 2011.

Dyson served on the board of directors of the Common Ground Foundation, a project dedicated to empowering urban youth in the United States.

Beliefs Dyson's general philosophy is that American black people are continuing to suffer from generations of ongoing oppression. On Fox News with Tucker Carlson, Dyson suggested that white Americans looking for ways to counter white privilege could make individual efforts to contribute time and money to support local black communities.