Join us for a special event at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 19 in Shriver Hall when Ta-Nehisi Coates, author of this year's Book Read title, The Beautiful Struggle, will give a talk about his book followed by a Q&A. This event is free and open to the JHU community. Reserve your tickets.
Join our Facebook event.
Coates' debut book, The Beautiful Struggle, is a tough and touching memoir of growing up in Baltimore during the age of crack. 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."
A national correspondent for The Atlantic, Coates has written many influential articles, including "The Case for Reparations," which reignited the long-dormant conversation of how to repay African-Americans for a system of institutional racism that's robbed them of wealth and success for generations. New York called the George Polk Award–winning cover story "probably the most discussed magazine piece of the Obama era."
A former Village Voice writer, Coates is the journalist in residence at the School of Journalism at CUNY. He was previously the Martin Luther King Visiting Associate Professor at MIT, and has been awarded the Hillman Prize for Opinion and Analysis Journalism. He is the winner of a 2015 MacArthur Fellowship.
