michael eric dyson, let me ask you this, though.revor noah, he's been making some waves recently when he suggested on his podcast that maybe. desegregation was a mistake. listen. >> i would love to. >> know if you think. >> integration was the right solution. maybe on the other side of, you know what, america of civil rights. >> yeah, no, i. >> don't and i and i don't think it's actually that controversial when. >> if if. >> you understand that segregation and integration weren't the only options. >> i encourage everyone to listen to the full context. it's a really fascinating conversation that goes into the nuance of a lot. what did you think of that moment? >> well, ruha benjamin is a brilliant woman, a great scholar. trevor noah, we know, is a smart guy. and this is an argument that's been happening over a century among african american people. martin luther king junior said, be careful ten days before he died, lest we integrate, uh, ourselves out of power. uh, james baldwin said, we don't want to integrate into a burning house.

michael, my michael eric dyson calls him the greatest american period period to take on king's life when so much has been written about him already. can seem daunting. it did seem daunting. it came about organically for me. i was having breakfast with -- gregory him as one does. has and tell the story. no, i was. i was interviewing him for my book about muhammad ali. he started telling me stories about martin luther king. and i walked out of that breakfast and i thought, wow, i have asked him more about martin luther. i was there to focus on ali. and then i started thinking there are still hundreds of people alive who knew martin luther king because. at that point, he would have been only in his eighties. today he'd be 95. there are still hundreds of people alive who knew martin luther king. so it just occurred to me that a really good use of my time would be to travel around the country and interview everybody who knew martin luther and record their stories. like, maybe i could also write a book and the thing that i think i had to ask myself is, do we need another king book? because the