Long Time Coming

Reckoning with Race in America

By: Michael Eric Dyson

Narrated by: Michael Eric Dyson

"As a narrator, the reverence and tenderness Dyson communicates in his letters--addressed to victims of racist violence Elijah McClain, Emmett Till, Eric Garner, Breonna Taylor, Hadiya Pendleton, Sandra Bland, and the Rev. Clementa Pinckney--invoke the experience of listening in on a holy epistle. Don't miss this." -- AudioFile Magazine

This program is read by Michael Eric Dyson.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Tears We Cannot Stop, a passionate call to America to finally reckon with race and start the journey to redemption.

The night of May 25, 2020 changed America. George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, was killed during an arrest in Minneapolis when a white cop suffocated him. The video of that night’s events went viral, sparking the largest protests in the nation’s history and the sort of social unrest we have not seen since the sixties. While Floyd’s death was certainly the catalyst, (heightened by the fact that it occurred during a pandemic whose victims were disproportionately of color) it was in truth the fuse that lit an ever-filling powder keg.

Long Time Coming grapples with the cultural and social forces that have shaped our nation in the brutal crucible of race. In five beautifully argued chapters—each addressed to a black martyr from Breonna Taylor to Rev. Clementa Pinckney—Dyson traces the genealogy of anti-blackness from the slave ship to the street corner where Floyd lost his life—and where America gained its will to confront the ugly truth of systemic racism. Ending with a poignant plea for hope, Dyson’s exciting new book points the way to social redemption. Long Time Coming is a necessary guide to help America finally reckon with race.

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Press

“Antiracist demonstrations have been like love notes to the martyrs of racist terror and anti-Blackness. Michael Eric Dyson writes out these love notes in this powerfully illuminating, heart-wrenching, and enlightening book. Long Time Coming is right on time.” —Ibram X. Kendi, bestselling author of How to Be an Antiracist

“Crushingly powerful, Long Time Coming is an unfiltered Marlboro of black pain.” —Isabel Wilkerson, author of Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

"Michael Eric Dyson is one of the nation’s most thoughtful and critical thinkers in social inequality and the demands of justice. Long Time Coming, his latest formidable, compelling book, has much to offer on our nation’s crucial need for racial reckoning and the way forward." —Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy

Critic reviews

”Michael Eric Dyson’s Long Time Coming: Reckoning with Race in America, is a brilliant and fiercely eloquent work that traces the roots of racism from slavery and Jim Crow to police brutality and the plague of Black killings in our own day. In gorgeous prose and erudite analysis, Dyson argues that both the trap of white comfort and the peril of cancel culture thwart a genuine reckoning with race in our country. Long Time Coming is a searing cry for racial justice from one of our nation’s greatest thinkers and most compelling prophets.” —Robin DiAngelo, bestselling author of White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism

A great book of history and incitefulness.

I loved this book, I will recommend it to all of my friends and family .

Great read!

Stirring reminder of the countless Black lives lost to the caste system which works to keep Black folk on the bottom. The toll that Blacks keep in their bones as they constantly work to rise above, while often having to educate, placate and navigate the dominant group. Indeed, it was a long time coming in getting us to 2020 and the events of this year, but yet there are glimmers of hope!

A Powerful Performance by Mr. Dyson

Long Time Coming is well written and sets the stage for more difficult discussions that need to be held in light of our Nation's current climate.

Great book!

Loved the book, not crazy about the letter format. Great information worded well. This book is insightful and thought provoking.

Hard hitting truth

This was a great book that was more so conversational than anything, which is why I enjoyed it. There are justifiable truths that are denoted in this piece that may make many of other persuasions uncomfortable, however that discomfort is what is needed.