Terry Jones is pastor of Dove World Outreach Center

The midterm election season is underway and politicians are vying to get their message out…that includes President Barack Obama, who touted his economic recovery plan yesterday in Cleveland. Spencer Overton, professor of law at The George Washington University Law School and a Demos Fellow, joins the show to talk voting rights and midterm election politics.

Malaria remains one of the most common causes of death in the developing world. Investigative journalist Sonia Shah spent five years on the ground in Cameroon, Malawi, Panama, and other countries hardest hit by the disease, and subsequently penned The Fever: How Malaria Has Ruled Humankind for 500,000 Years. Shah joins us to speak about this stubborn and deadly disease and shares her thoughts on its possible eradication.

Javeria Malik of ActionAid reports from Islamabad

Even in light of the “digital divide,” low-income communities and communities of color are integrating technology and social media in some interesting ways. We explore the intersection of technology and community organizing with Arif Mamdani, executive director of the Minneapolis-based Progressive Technology Project, and Henry Serrano, a grassroots activist and senior organizer with the New York group Community Voices Heard.

In this era of digital politics, how can politicians best leverage their online personas, and ensure that they agree with their personal and professional ones? Mindy Finn, Republican new media wiz and partner at Engage DC, joins us to talk about some of the more troubling trends she’s seeing in online politics, what does and doesn’t work in the digital space, and the potential downfalls of online donations.

Stuart Buck is a doctoral student in education and a Caucasian parent who has adopted two black children. That combination of scholarship and personal interest seems the perfect explanation for why he wrote Acting White: The Ironic Effects of Desegregation. Buck joins us to explore the concept of “acting white” and to discuss whether the phenomenon truly exists.

Are racism and sexism rampant in gaming culture?

Latoya Peterson, editor of the popular blog racialicious.com calls herself a “certified media junkie who provides a hip-hop feminist and anti-racist view on pop culture.” Peterson’s special focus includes video games, anime, and American comics. In a fascinating conversation, she demonstrates examples of social injustice in video games and the insensitivity of game developers.

Ever wonder who the few faces of color are in crowds like those at Glenn Beck’s recent rally in Washington, D.C.? We try to find out more about conservatives of color when we talk race and politics with Rosa Leonetti, the New Jersey State Coordinator for the national conservative group Smart Girl Politics and a Tea Party sympathizer.

Actor and author Hill Harper discusses his book, The Conversation

We reached out across the Michael Eric Dyson Show community, from those who tune in on public radio to fans on Facebook, to find people who wanted to join our host in the show’s first-ever radio meet-up. Today, three listeners from Sacramento, Calif; Detroit; and Hartford, Conn., get to dish with our host on topics from Christian rap to what happened to the progressive voice.

You might know actor and author Hill Harper from his television role as Dr. Sheldon Hawkes on CSI: NY, or you might have read his popular book, Letters to a Young Brother: MANifest Your Destiny. Harper’s latest book, The Conversation, is out on paperback, and he stops by the show to speak about men, women, and healthy relationships.

Imagine the Roman general from Shakespeare’s “Titus Andronicus” as a U.S. soldier returning home from serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. Director John Farmanesh-Bocca did just that in Titus Redux, now at the Kirk Douglas Theater in Los Angeles. He joins the show to discuss the play.

The Tea Party gains steam

We continue our focus on innovative education programs around the country with a look at how Latino arts are being used to engage Hispanic students in Northern California. John Leanos, assistant professor of social documentation at the University of California, Santa Cruz, joins us to discuss how the unique expressions of Latino and Chicano arts are created and experienced.

This weekend, the Caribbean island of Curacao hosts the North Sea Jazz Festival, the largest indoor jazz festival in the world. WEAA-FM, the host station for The Michael Eric Dyson Show, is there, and music director Marcellus “The Bassman” Shepard gives us the rundown of the festival’s lineup. He also shares new music from a few of his favorite jazz artists.

Last weekend marked the 47th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington and Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech. It also was when TV talk show host Glenn Beck staged a rally in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., the site of the original event. How does today’s political landscape compare to 1963? Charles Euchner, author of Nobody Turn Me Around: A People’s History of the 1963 March on Washington, joins us to answer that question and more.

International aid flows into Pakistan

We continue our look at innovative education programs around the country with a focus on efforts in Washington, D.C., to help students in special education programs transition from secondary school to college and adulthood. Karen Wills-Henry, a parent empowerment specialist for the D.C. Parent Information Resource Center; and Melanie Smallwood, coordinator and parent liaison to D.C. Public Schools with Project SEARCH, join us to discuss the particular challenges that parents of children with disabilities face in seeing their children through to high school graduation, and ways to successfully navigate that difficult terrain.

This week the Kennedy Center presents its annual Page to Stage Festival, which features readings and open rehearsals from dynamic artists around the country. Yesterday we heard about Amelia, the civil war romance. Today, we talk to the production team from FRAT, a musical about what happens when a white guy from Ohio decides to join a black fraternity on the campus of Howard University. Director Chris McGriff, playwright Nkosi Sharpe, composer Charles Coakley Jr., and actor Joshua Nelson talk about what brought them to this compelling story and treat us to an excerpted performance.

Students from Kalamazoo's Merze Tate Travel Club

This week, we start looking at innovative education programs around the country by highlighting some enterprising work being done in Kalamazoo, Mich. Sonya Bernard-Hollins, editor and publisher of Community Voices, landed a Time Inc. innovation grant for her work on a new website that will experiment with crowd-sourcing and user-generated content to help high school students who qualify for The Kalamazoo Promise, a scholarship that sends students to educational institutions in Michigan. And if that’s not enough, Bernard-Hollins also founded the Merze Tate Travel Club to expose girls in grades 5 through 12 to new experiences. We talk to her and two of the students in the club.

The Kennedy Center presents its annual Page to Stage Festival this weekend, featuring readings and open rehearsals from more than 40 works in development by national, regional, and local theater companies. We present on the show an excerpted performance from the play Amelia, a multiple-character, two-actor play about the journey that the title character takes to be reunited with her husband during the Civil War. Amelia disguises herself as a Union soldier and travels from rural Pennsylvania to the notorious Andersonville Prison Camp in Georgia. The playwright, Alex Webb, and his wife, actress Shirleyann Kaladjian join us to discuss the epic Civil War romance.

Pam Grier joins Michael Eric Dyson in studio

For the past two weeks, we featured our “Open Mike” series, presenting thoughtful conversations with black intellectuals and political leaders. But our segment with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan proved quite controversial and elicited an overwhelming response. One listener wrote in, “I was horrified by the hatred spewed in today’s show. I could not hear the truth through the hate speech. I was even more shocked by Dr. Dyson calling Dr. Farrakhan a truth teller and giving a cowardly interview.” We follow up our conversation with the Minister by opening the mic to Abraham Foxman, the national director for the Anti-Defamation League, and Stanley Crouch, opinion writer for the New York Daily News.

Actress Pam Grier, famous for her roles during the so-called blaxploitation film era, will go down in cinematic history for instilling the image of the strong and sexy woman on the silver screen. While Grier is known for her acting credentials in movies such as Foxy Brown, Coffy, and Sheba Baby, she’s also a cancer survivor, animal enthusiast, and overall true humanitarian. She joins us in studio to talk about her memoir, Foxy: My Life in Three Acts.

Wendell Pierce is Antoine Batiste in HBO's "Treme"

One expense that weighs heavily on the wallets and purses of parents at all economic levels is the cost of child care. Many parents have long complained that child care costs in many cases exceed those of monthly food and housing, causing some to consider unique strategies for addressing the issue. Linda Smith, executive director of the National Association of Childcare Resource and Referral Agencies joins us to discuss this continued economic strain for parents.

How much do you remember about algebra? We introduce you to a man with a noteworthy—and award-winning—approach to teaching math in Los Angeles. LaMar Queen, better known as the hip-hop math teacher, has figured out just how to make algebraic formulae fun for kids: set concepts like “Slope Intercept” and “Mean, Median, Mode, and Range” to a hip-hop beat. He joins us to discuss his unconventional yet successful technique—and maybe help you remember why y=mx+b.

Finally, we take a walk down Bourbon Street with New Orleans saxophonist Donald Harrison, also known as “The King of Nouveau Swing.” He discusses his most recent project and the resurgence of the New Orleans music scene.