Next

Darryl Stingley

Stingley (1951-2007) was American professional football player who was paralyzed during a game in 1978 when he was 26. Coates recalls reading an article about the incident at a young age and how it terrified him. This was a key moment in Coates’s childhood in that it taught him about fear, but also showed him the power of writing and gave him the desire to be a writer himself.

Josiah Nott

Nott (b. 1804-1873) was an American anthropologist who used pseudoscience to justify racism. Coates discusses Nott and his published works that were used as supposed scientific proof of the racist idea that Black Africans were genetically inferior to white Europeans.

Paulo Freire

Freire (1921-1997) was Brazilian educator, philosopher, and theorist whose work described the Brazilian education system as being designed to keep poor people uneducated. Coates references Freire’s theories, especially his “Banking System” concept (see Key Terms) when discussing the education system in America.  

Mary Wood

Mary Wood is a high school teacher in South Carolina who Coates visits after she is ordered to stop teaching one of Coates’s books in her class. Coates describes his visit to South Carolina to support her in the third chapter of The Message. 

Next section Key Terms

Take a Study Break