Dr. Michael Eric Dyson will lecture at the University of South Alabama’s African-American Studies commemorative event to celebrate the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Best-Selling Author, Professor and News Contributor Michael Eric Dyson Speaks on Dr. King at USA Event.

Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, professor of sociology at Georgetown University, MSNBC political analyst and best-selling author, will lecture at the University of South Alabama’s African-American Studies commemorative event to celebrate the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at 7 p.m. Friday, Jan. 18, at the Mobile Civic Center Theater.

Dyson will lecture on “The Sweetness of Struggle.” Jaguar Productions and the Mobile County Commission are co-sponsors, and this event is free and open to the public. JagTran will pick up students near the USA Dining Hall and Epsilon Residence Hall at 6 p.m. and 6:15 p.m.

“Our campus is changing and students need to be reminded about the importance of living a life consciously engaged in struggle,” said Dr. Kern Jackson, assistant professor of English at USA and director of the African-American Studies program. “During this event, we will celebrate the life of Dr. King, and the power and importance of our collective struggle with American democracy.”

Dyson is recognized as one of the nation’s most insightful and remarkable figures of our time. He is a native of Detroit, Mich., and has taught at Brown, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Columbia University, and several others. Dyson has won many prestigious honors, from an American Book Award to the NAACP Image Award, where he was nominated five times, taking home the celebrated trophy twice.

His influence has spread far beyond the academy in his roles of social activist, renowned orator, highly sought-after lecturer, and ordained Baptist minister and prophetic preacher. His work has led him from meeting with the president in the Oval O-ffice of the White House to meeting with prisoners across the country.

Dyson has been cited by Ebony magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential African-Americans and as one of the 150 Most Powerful Blacks in the nation. He has appeared on every major television and radio show in the country, including the Today Show, NPR’s “Talk of the Nation,” CNN, the Tavis Smiley Show, Def Poetry Jam, Meet the Press, Face the Nation, Real Time with Bill Maher and the Colbert Report.

Dyson is the author of many books, including “Making Malcolm: The Myth and Meaning of Malcolm X,” which was named one of the most important African-American books of the 20th Century. The book was also named as a Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times. He is also the author of “Holler if You Hear Me: Searching for Tupac Shakur” and a 2005 New York Times bestseller “Is Bill Cosby Right? Or Has the Black Middle Class Lost Its Mind?”

For more information about the USA MLK event, call Jaguar Productions at (251)460-7144.

January 15, 2013 Contact: Joy Washington, USA Public Relations, (251) 460-6638