Two-hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal. This legacy of discrimination adds up, and Ta-Nehisi Coates’ major Atlantic cover story “The Case for Reparations” ignited the long-dormant national conversation of how to repay African Americans for generations of institutional racism.
Due to personal health issues, Ta-Nehisi Coates has had to cancel tonight’s presentation. If it is possible to reschedule in the fall, a further announcement will be made.
This event is free and open to the public, but reservations must be made in advance at tickets.goucher.edu or 410-337-6333.
Coates, a senior editor and essayist for The Atlantic, has written many influential articles, including “The Case for Reparations,” which has been one of the most talked-about pieces of nonfiction in recent memory. His “This Is How We Lost to the White Man” examined the generational and ideological rifts in the black community. And last year, his blog for the Atlantic—a lesson in how to thoroughly engage a community of readers—was named by Time as one of the “25 Best in the World.”
In his début memoir, The Beautiful Struggle, Coates recounted growing up in a rough neighborhood in West Baltimore. It’s also a vivid portrait of his father—a Vietnam vet, former Black Panther, and a professor at Howard University who published books by African-American authors in his basement. Coates found an early refuge in these books, as well as in X-factor comic books, launching a lifeline love of reading and writing. He is working on his first novel, about an interracial family in pre-Civil War Virginia.
Coates is a former writer for The Village Voice and a contributor to Time, O, and The New York Times Magazine. In 2012, he was awarded the Hillman Prize for Opinion and Analysis Journalism. Judge Hendrik Hertzberg, of The New Yorker, wrote, “Coates is one of the most elegant and sharp observers of race in America. He is an upholder of universal values, a brave and compassionate writer who challenges his readers to transcend narrow self-definitions and focus on shared humanity.”
Last fall, Coates began a teaching at the School of Journalism at CUNY. He was previously the Martin Luther King Visiting Associate Professor at MIT. Coates is one of Goucher’s Spring 2015 Robert and Jane Meyerhoff Visiting Professors, and his lecture is being presented as part of Goucher’s theme semester titled “Civil Rights: Past/Present/Future.”