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Quote by Michael Eric Dyson

“I had an exciting, interesting childhood, to be sure, with all of the challenges that ghetto life provides - but had loving parents.”

Quote by Michael Eric Dyson

Author

Michael Eric Dyson

Michael Eric Dyson is an American author, academic, and public intellectual, born on October 23, 1958. He is recognized for his work in African American studies, sociology, and cultural criticism. Dyson has authored numerous books on race, politics, and culture, and has held faculty positions at various universities. more

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“I was born in '58, so the riot in Detroit in 1967 was a memorable introduction to the issue of race and how race made a difference in American society. And then the next year, of course, Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination. And the Detroit Tigers winning the World Series. All of that made a huge impression on my growing mind.”

“[The World Series] introduced me for the first time to a team with a lot of black players. Detroit had about three of them: I think it was Willie Horton, Gates Brown, and Earl Wilson - might have been one or two more in '68.”

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“Mrs. James, my fifth-grade teacher, introduced us to some of the great literature of African American culture. I won my first blue ribbon reciting the vernacular poems of Paul Lawrence Dunbar, in particular "Little Brown Baby."”

“[ Mrs. James, my fifth-grade teacher] introduced us to these authors early on and taught us that their literature is important. Langston Hughes - we read his poetry. We studied who W.E.B DuBois was. And so she whetted our appetites.”

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“I went to the library and began to read some stuff on my own. My discovery of James Baldwin was life-changing. I read Go Tell It on the Mountain first, and that was hugely impactful.”

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“The beauty of the literary art, the grappling with the black church, the wrestling with one's identity in the bosom of a complicated black community that was both bulwark to the larger white society as well as a threshing ground, so to speak, to hash out the differences that black people have among ourselves.”

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“I grew up in the church and began to recite set pieces at the age of four and five, like many of the other kids.”

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“We began to connect literacy and learning and the lively effects of biblical knowledge and preaching pretty early. That was a tremendous impact.”

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“When I was 12 years old, my pastor came to the church: Dr. Fredrick Samson. And that was revolutionary because he mentored me and I got a chance to see up close the impact of a rhetorical genius.”

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“I received my calling and accepted it at around 18.”

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