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Ta-Nehisi Coates (b. 1975) frequently references the impact his childhood and upbring had on him in The Message and other works. He was born in West Baltimore, Maryland, in 1975. His mother, Cheryl Lynn Waters, was a teacher. His father, William Paul Coates, was a publisher who founded the Black Classic Press, which reissued forgotten African American works. His father also worked as a librarian at the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University and was a member of the local Black Panther chapter. 

Coates’s childhood neighborhood was impoverished, and violence was not uncommon, which caused Coates to fear for his safety. In The Message and elsewhere, he talks about how being exposed to literature from an early age enabled him to seek answers about the struggles of Black people and his culture through reading. In the book, he also states that he believes he should have been diagnosed with ADHD, and that criticism he received as a child for not being able to focus made him feel like he was letting down his parents.

Coates began studies at Howard University in 1993, leaving five years later without a degree. Sometime thereafter, he had his son, Samori, with Kenyatta Matthews. He began to work as a freelance writer but did not garner substantial attention until started writing for periodicals including the Washington Monthly, Philadelphia Weekly, and Time. His readership increased significantly when he began corresponding for website of The Atlantic. Coates wrote a series of powerfully worded opinion essays that made him a nationally-known voice, including several essays about the presidency of Barack Obama from 2009 to 2017.

Coates won the George Polk Ward for Commentary for his essays in 2014. The following year, he was awarded a “genius grant” from the MacArthur Foundation. His best-known essay, “The Case for Reparations,” was published in The Atlantic in 2014. It describes discriminatory housing practices used against Black American and the long toll of problems that have resulted from them.

In 2008, Coates published a memoir called The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood. His best-known book to date, Between the World and Me: Notes on the First 150 Years in America (2015) is structured as a letter from Coates to his 15-year-old son, Samori. It explores the complexities of being Black in the United States, with Coates delving into the historical, social, and personal dimensions of the Black American experience, as he addresses issues of systemic racism, identity, and the struggle for justice. It won the 2015 National Book Award for Nonfiction.

 In 2017, Coates published We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy, a collection of his essays from The Atlantic about the Obama years with new introductions by Coates. He also published a novel, The Water Dancer, in 2019. Coates has also written a Black Panther series and a Captain America series for Marvel Comics.

The Message was published in October of 2024. You can read a short account of the reader and critical reception it received when it was published here.

Next section Style & Presentation: Letters from Travels

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