37 Facts About Ta-Nehisi Coates

Ta-Nehisi Paul Coates is an American author and journalist.

Ta-Nehisi Coates gained a wide readership during his time as national correspondent at The Atlantic, where he wrote about cultural, social, and political issues, particularly regarding African Americans and white supremacy.

Ta-Nehisi Coates has contributed to The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, The Washington Monthly, O, and other publications.

Ta-Nehisi Coates has published three non-fiction books: The Beautiful Struggle, Between the World and Me, and We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy.

Ta-Nehisi Coates has written a Black Panther series and a Captain America series for Marvel Comics.

Ta-Nehisi Coates's father, William Paul Coates, was a Vietnam War veteran, former Black Panther, publisher, and librarian.

Ta-Nehisi Coates's mother, Cheryl Lynn Coates, was a teacher.

Ta-Nehisi Coates's father founded and ran Black Classic Press, a publishing company specializing in African-American titles.

Ta-Nehisi Coates's father had seven children, five boys and two girls, by four women.

Ta-Nehisi Coates has said that he lived with his father for the entirety of his upbringing, and that, in his family, the important overarching focus was on rearing children with values based on family, respect for elders and being a contribution to your community, an approach to family that was common in the community where he grew up.

Ta-Nehisi Coates grew up in the Mondawmin neighborhood of Baltimore during the crack epidemic.

Ta-Nehisi Coates's father's work with the Black Classic Press was a huge influence.

Ta-Nehisi Coates has said that he read many of the books his father published.

Ta-Nehisi Coates attended Howard University, leaving after five years to start a career in journalism.

Ta-Nehisi Coates is the only child in his family without a college degree.

In mid-2014, Ta-Nehisi Coates attended an intensive program in French at Middlebury College to prepare for a writing fellowship in Paris, France.

From 2000 to 2007, Ta-Nehisi Coates worked as a journalist with various publications, including Philadelphia Weekly, The Village Voice, and Time.

Ta-Nehisi Coates became a senior editor at The Atlantic, for which he wrote feature articles as well as maintaining his blog.

In discussing The Atlantic article on "The Case for Reparations", Ta-Nehisi Coates said he had worked on it for almost two years.

Ta-Nehisi Coates had read Rutgers University professor Beryl Satter's book, Family Properties: Race, Real Estate, and the Exploitation of Black Urban America, a history of redlining that included a discussion of the grassroots organization the Contract Buyers League, of which Clyde Ross was one of the leaders.

Ta-Nehisi Coates has worked as a guest columnist for The New York Times, having turned down an offer from them to become a regular columnist.

Ta-Nehisi Coates has written for The Washington Post, the Washington Monthly, and O magazine.

Ta-Nehisi Coates left his position as a national correspondent for The Atlantic in July 2018 after a decade with the magazine.

In 2008, Ta-Nehisi Coates published The Beautiful Struggle, a memoir about coming of age in West Baltimore and its effect on him.

Ta-Nehisi Coates said that one of the origins of the book was the death of a college friend, Prince Carmen Jones Jr.

In 2016, Ta-Nehisi Coates was the writer of the sixth volume of Marvel Comics' Black Panther series, which teamed him with artist Brian Stelfreeze.

In 2018, Ta-Nehisi Coates announced he would be writing a ninth volume of the Captain America series, which would team him with artists Leinil Yu and Alex Ross.

Ta-Nehisi Coates added essays written especially for the book bridging the gaps between the previously-published essays, as well as an introduction and an epilogue.

Ta-Nehisi Coates sees parallels between that earlier period and the Obama presidency.

Ta-Nehisi Coates's first novel and work of fiction, The Water Dancer, was published in 2019, and is a surrealist story set in the time of slavery, concerning a superhuman protagonist named Hiram Walker who possesses photographic memory, but who cannot remember his mother, and is able to transport people over far distances by using a power known as "conduction" which can fold the Earth like fabric and allows him to travel across large areas via waterways.

Ta-Nehisi Coates joined the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism as its journalist-in-residence in late 2014.

In 2017, Coates joined the faculty of New York University's Arthur L Carter Journalism Institute as a Distinguished Writer in Residence.

In 2021, Ta-Nehisi Coates joined the Howard University faculty as writer-in-residence in the College of Arts and Sciences and holds the Sterling Brown chair in the English Department.

Ta-Nehisi Coates is working on a novel about an African American from Chicago who moves to Paris.

In February 2021, it was reported that Ta-Nehisi Coates had been hired to write the script of a new Superman feature film from DC Films and Warner Bros.

Ta-Nehisi Coates's son's name is a reference to three people: Samori Ture, a Mande chief who fought French colonialism, black Cuban revolutionary Antonio Maceo Grajales, and Coates's father, who was known by his middle name of Paul.

Ta-Nehisi Coates met his wife when they were both students at Howard University.