Book Study: What the Truth Sounds Like, Michael Eric Dyson

Published 2018; 288 pages

Dialectic Journal/Lesson, Class Notes:  plans: 33 pages, 8,603 words, many visuals

THOSE WHO BEAR THE GREATEST RESPONSIBILITU FOR THE CHAOS IN BIRMINGHAM AND NOT IN BIRMINGHAM.  AMONG THOSE RESPONSIBLE ARE J. EDGAR HOOVER, SENATOR EASTLAND (MISS.), THE POWER STRUCTURE WHICH HAS GIVEN BULL CONNOR SUCH LICENSE, AND PRESIDENT KENNEDY, WO HAS NOT USED THE GREAT PRESTIGE OF HIS OFFICE AS THE MORAL FORUM WHICH IT CAN BE.  THE CRISIS IS NEITHER REGIONAL NOR RACIAL.  IT IS A MATTER OF THE NATION’S LIFE OR DEATH.  NO TRUCE CAN BE BINDING UNTIL THE AMERICAN PEOPLE AND OUR REPRESENTATIVES ARE ABLE TO ACCEPT THE SIMPLE FACT THAT A NEGRO IS A MAN.

--King himself was disappointed in the foot-dragging approach of the Kennedy administration to civil rights legislation
-Baldwin had become, overnight, the spokesman for Negroes, and eventually he would put his literary career on hold for a time in order to herald the racial Armageddon that awaited the nation should it not heed his voice and pay attention to militant students and prophet like MLK, Jr.