The Black Presidency

As Michael Eric Dyson, academic, author, and radio host, narrates his own audiobook, he knows what he wants emphasized and where to inflect the prose. This is especially important when reading a text that focuses on a president for whom speech-making matters. One of Dyson's most intriguing insights is how Obama's speech patterns owe a debt to Martin Luther King, Jr. In this wide-ranging yet focused treatment of the nation's first biracial chief executive, the listener is immersed in the Obama years examined through the filter of race--especially the president's struggles with Congress and his complex role as both hero and scold to American blacks. Dyson ends with appreciation for Obama's orations about Trayvon Martin and the murders in a Charleston, South Carolina church. The author/narrator's intense reading style and insider status give this important audiobook authority. A.M. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine