Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, a sociology professor at Georgetown University, will speak at SJSU on Monday.

Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, a professor of Sociology at Georgetown University who was named one of the most influential black Americans by ‘Ebony’ magazine, will lead a discussion at San José State University on Feb. 24, from 6-7:30 in Morris Dailey Auditorium. Admission is free.

The discussion, “Are we post-racial, or is racism still a problem?”, will allow an opportunities for questions from the audience. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. for SJSU students with a Tower card and at 5:45 p.m. for the general public. The event will also be streamed lived at the www.sjsu.edu website. Audience members will be allowed to submit questions in person or via Twitter, using the hashtag #DysonSJSU.

The twitter feed will be monitored by a team of students, faculty, staff and administrators who came together in response to the alleged hate crimes. The group is planning a series of events beginning with Dyson, a Detroit native who took an unusual path to becoming one of the nation’s leading African American scholars. According to his bio, he was a welfare father and factory worker before he began college at age 21. Now an author, minister and political analyst, he bridges academia and pop culture. In addition to penning 17 books, he has appeared in the cartoon strip “The Boondocks,” and been name checked by hip hop legends KRS-1, Black Thought and Nas.

Dyson is also the author of “April 4, 1968: Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Death and How It Changed America.”