Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching ─ A Young Black Man's Education

Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching is an account of how, politically and culturally, the existing script for black manhood has been rewritten for the millennial generation. Young men of this age have watched as Barack Obama was elected president but have also witnessed the deaths of Oscar Grant, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Akai Gurley, and so many other young black men killed by police or vigilante violence. Chronicling his personal and political education during these tumultuous years, Smith narrates his own coming-of-age story and his struggles to come into his own at a time when too many black men do not survive into adulthood.

From Barack Obama’s landmark speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2004 to the recent and widely reported cases of violence against women, from powerful moments of black self-determination like LeBron James’ decision” to the mobilization of thousands of young black men in the wake of Trayvon Martin’s death, Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching documents of how these public milestones have challenged cultural notions of black manhood. Part memoir, part political tract, this book is an unprecedented and intimate glimpse into what it means to be young, black, and male in America todayand what it means to be treated as a human in a society dependent on your subjugation.

Mychal Denzel Smith is a Knobler Fellow at The Nation Institute, a contributing writer forThe Nation magazine, and a contributor to Feministing.com and Salon. He has also written forThe New York Times, The Atlantic, The Guardian, The Root, theGrio, ThinkProgress, andThe Huffington Post, and he has been a featured commentator on NPR, BBC radio, CNN, MSNBC, Al Jazeera America, HuffPost Live, and a number of other radio and television programs. His work has won praise from celebrated writers, journalists, and public intellectuals, including Marc Lamont Hill, Melissa Harris-Perry, Jeremy Scahill, Jessica Valenti, Katrina vanden Heuvel, Chris Hayes, Michael Eric Dyson, Janet Mock, Tayari Jones, Jelani Cobb, and more.