What Truth Sounds Like: Robert F. Kennedy, James Baldwin, and Our Unfinished Conversation About Race in America

In the spring of 1963, an epochal meeting took place between titans of American society. Robert F. Kennedy and James Baldwin met in Kennedy's New York penthouse apartment, joined by entertainers Harry Belafonte and Lena Horne, playwright Lorraine Hansberry, and young activist Jerome Smith. Baldwin and friends charged RFK with being ignorant of black life and struggle, and Kennedy countered that the black elite emphasized witness - attesting to suffering - over policy. That conflict festers to this day.

Every group represented by the people in that room - politicians, artists, intellectuals, activists - has the power to fix what still ails us. Examining the role of everyone from Jay-Z to Kamala Harris and everything from Black Lives Matter to Black Panther, Dr. Dyson asks us all to seize Baldwin's challenge.

What Truth Sounds Like is a powerful call to action, for only when we separate whiteness from America will we fulfill the dream of a true democracy.