Celebrating Ta-Nehisi Paul Coates

To thrive in the crime ridden streets of Baltimore is equivalent to facing the elements of crime: guns, fists, knives, crack, rape and disease, according to the activist, educator, and American writer Ta-Nehisi Paul Coates who strongly advocates for African American rights. Coates hard roots developed on the city-streets of Mondawmin, Baltimore during the cultivating crack epidemic, promoting his robust character. What sprung up as a form of discipline by his mother became a love for reading and writing.  His father, a black panther and founder of Black Classic Press (a newspaper which reached out to the African American community) led to his fervor for journalism, constantly reading his publications.

Within his writing career, Coates became senior editor for The Atlantic as well as writing scattered stories for Time, the New York Times, The Washington Post, and O, the Oprah Magazine. Coates is most known for his second book, “Between the World and Me” which won the National Book Award for nonfiction and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction.

Throughout his book, he centers around the concept of white supremacy within the U.S. and his personal accounts of discrimination towards his teenage son. In an interview with Stephen Colbert he remarks that in order to heal the nation we must reveal the hardcore facts.

Within his book, public speaking, and teaching moments he values understanding and devoutly recognizing the signs of racism and discrimination in order to overcome the challenges they create.