Michael Eric Dyson

If People magazine ever did a "Smartest Men Alive" cover, we know Michael Eric Dyson's face would be on the cover. This Chicago-born black man has the flow of a rapper in his speech, he uses vocabulary words that you usually on see on the SAT, and he's a prolific writer. Oh, and did we mention he's also a Baptist minister? What the man can do with words is extraordinary. He's so sweet with his words, if he wasn’t a scholar, he’d make a mean pimp, but maybe he’s already a word pimp, selling his intellect to the world, ya dig?

Dyson, 53, a Princeton graduate, is a speaker, thinker, professor, author, cultural critic and more. And sorry, ladies, he's also married - to the equally brilliant Marcia Dyson. Well, we said he was smart, didn’t we?

Follow him on Twitter @MichaelEDyson.
Recommended Reading: "Know What I Mean? Reflections on Hip-Hop."

Derrick Ashong

Ghanaian-American Derrick Ashong, 36, rose to national prominence the new-fashioned way – via a video that went viral on YouTube. In 2008, when a reporter asked a casually-dressed young black man on the street outside of a Democratic presidential debate in Los Angeles what he thought of then-Sen. Obama's campaign for he White House, he probably didn't expect an articulate, point-by-point analysis. Well, that's what he got - to his visible surprise. (Since removed from YouTube, you can see a clip of it here at 2:26.) The Harvard graduate became a symbol of the youth movement that helped Obama get elected.

Since that moment, Ashong, who is also a musician, has become a radio host, hosting "The Derrick Ashong Experience" on Oprah Winfrey's Sirius XM Radio channel and a TV host on "The Stream" for Al Jazeera English. After returning to Harvard for doctoral studies, Ashong left to focus on his music, his public speaking and media career and his other projects.

Follow him on Twitter @ashong. Click here for his follow up to that original video, and click here to read his blog.

Dr. William Jelani Cobb

Dr. William Jelani Cobb has been on the academic scene for years, although his face may not be as well-known to those outside of Spelman College and academic circles. The longtime Spelman professor of history is now at Rutgers University, his graduate alma mater, as an associate professor of history and Africana studies. It's a lengthy title, but one this 35-year-old Queens native deserves.

He just recently appeared on Melissa Harris Perry's eponymous new weekend morning show on MSNBC, and we’re hoping to see a lot more of him on TV as the Obama campaign heads down to November.

Follow him on Twitter @jelani9. Click here to watch him on "Melissa Harris Perry."
Recommended Reading: "The Devil and Dave Chappelle."

Marc Lamont Hill

He’s only 33, but don't let his youth fool you. Marc Lamont Hill is a smart brother who cares passionately about the state of black America. The host of the nationally syndicated show "Our World with Black Enterprise," Hill is one of the nation's leading black scholars. The University of Pennsylvania graduate is now an associate professor of education at Columbia University. Education, particularly of black youth, has been a priority for Hill. He formed the My5th to inform underprivileged young people about their legal rights. Hill was one of the people who advocated for the early release of Shaquanda Cotton, a 15-year-old indefinitely sentenced to a juvenile correction facility after a fight with a teacher.

Follow him on Twitter @MarcLamontHill. Click here to watch him on "Our World With Black Enterprise.
Recommended Reading: "Beats, Rhymes and Classroom Life: Pedagogy and the Politics of Identity."

Charles Ogletree

Harvard law professor Charles Ogletree has been head of the "smart brother" class for some time now. The 59-year-old director of Harvard's Charles Hamilton Houston institute for race and justice is the author of several books, a lecturer and a scholar. He also has the unique distinction of teaching both Barack Obama and Michelle Obama - then Michelle Robinson - when both were at Harvard.

Ogletree often lectures on legal topics and is considered one of the foremost legal minds in the country, if not the world. His most recent book is about the implications of the arrest of his colleague, Henry Louis Gates, and the infamous "beer summit" with President Obama that followed.

Click here to watch Ogletree interviewed by Soledad O'Brien.
Recommended Reading: "The Presumption of Guilt: The Arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Race, Class and Crime in America."