Play Audiobook Sample
Play Audiobook Sample
In this moving work, part clear-eyed assessment, part memoir, the son of iconic African American Congressman John Conyers Jr. shines a spotlight on his father and his political legacy, and reveals how, as his son, he eventually learned to leverage his own voice in a world that his father helped create.
A respectful, thoughtful, yet clear-eyed reframing of a national hero’s personal and political odyssey, My Father’s House is John Conyers III's love letter to his father and a record of his own journey. Conyers reveals a towering figure in modern American political history and an ordinary family man; a leader whose work in Washington necessitated his many absences as a father from a son coming of age in Detroit.
John Conyers III introduces us to John James Conyers, Jr. the legislator, who changed lives and made history, and of his equity-focused work that remains to be done. We meet Conyers the politician and mentor who worked with and counselled a network of powerbrokers—often from the family home on Seven Mile Road in the Motor City—including President Bill Clinton, Congressmen Adam Clayton Powell Jr., Charlie Rangel, Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, feminist Gloria Steinem, entertainer-activists Harry Belafonte, Berry Gordy, Stevie Wonder, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Chris Tucker and a slew of other players in Washington, DC, and across the nation.
A resonant political, historical, and family story, My Father’s House explores how John James Conyers, Jr., was at once a man of deep and abiding spiritual faith, human talents, and human weaknesses. As he places his father among this land's greatest lawmakers, he also demystifies and grounds the Civil Rights giants of that era, reminding us of their noble yet deeply flawed humanity. This exploration of John James Conyers, Jr., told through John Conyers III's eyes and experiences, is essential to a thorough understanding of modern U.S. politics and the cultures and human lives it continues to shape.
Download and start listening now!
Be the first to write a review about this audiobook!
Michael Eric Dyson is an award-winning and New York Times bestselling author of over twenty books, a widely celebrated professor, a prominent public intellectual, an ordained Baptist minister, and a noted political analyst. He has twice won the NAACP Image Award winner and won the American Book Award for Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster. His book The Black Presidency: Barack Obama and the Politics of Race in America was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize. He is also a highly sought-after public speaker. He is the recipient of the 2020 Langston Hughes Festival Medallion, and Ebony magazine named him one of the 100 Most Influential African Americans and one of the 150 most powerful Black people in the nation. Follow him on Twitter @michaeledyson and on his official Facebook page (facebook.com/michaelericdyson).