This interview with Terry Gross on her NPR show Fresh Air was recorded in July 2015, right after the book Between the World and Me was published. In this discussion, Coates discusses many topics discussed in the book and the excerpt we are reading, “Letter to My Son”: his close friend Prince who was killed by the police, the complicated politics and risks of walking down the street as a kid in Baltimore, and an incident in which he was arrested for threatening a teacher while in high school and why he did it.

We won’t have time to listen to the full interview in class (though I hope to get at least to 20 min.!)  but you can listen to the whole length on your own:

http://www.npr.org/2015/07/13/422554778/ta-nehisi-coates-on-police-brutality-the-confederate-flag-and-forgiveness

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/07/tanehisi-coates-between-the-world-and-me/397619/

This essay, which appeared in The Atlantic in July 2015, is an excerpt from Coates’ book Between the World and Me, which went on to win many well deserved awards for the quality of its writing and the necessity of its subject. In our class, we will read this closely over two class sessions, and consider it in context of events that have happened since its writing and in context with other interviews and topices we have considered..

This poignant TEDx Talk by Jay Smooth addresses mindsets and habits that often get in the way of important discussions of race.

http://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/397715/Between-the-World-and-Me-Teaser/

Ta-Nehisi Coates reads from a section of “Letter to My Son” in this visual and auditory introduction to his work.

In this interview, which was conducted after Ta-Nehisi’s groundbreaking essay, “The Case for Reparations” includes Coates discussion of this topic and relates it to his childhood in Baltimore. We are watching this powerful discussion and thinking of these issues in context of  his later essay, “Letter to My Son.”