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