“Oh God, the hour is dark. The suffering is great. But we will not give up. We will not surrender.”

Those words come from the closing of a sermon; not one delivered in a church, but in a book. It’s a sermon aimed at helping white Americans understand what their black countrymen have faced over the last several hundred years, and how it will take more than white empathy to create true equality.

The new book, “Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America,” was written by minister, Georgetown sociology professor and prolific author Michael Eric Dyson.

Dyson joins Chicago Tonight for a conversation.