![]() ![]() ![]() Raised in Baltimore at the height of the crack epidemic, Coates attended Howard University and lost a close friend to police violence. And while his work has an academic flavor-he leans heavily on the work of historians and sociologists-this has not been an academic pursuit. Hired in the midst of Barack Obama’s remarkable first campaign for president, Coates devoted his mind and prose to understanding and grappling with America’s racism. If that is true of anyone at this moment in public life, it is true of Ta-Nehisi Coates, a senior editor for the Atlantic and one of the most famous scribes in the country. ![]() And in turn, both their craft and their ideas can become secondary to who they are and what they represent. They become symbols, names to hold in either reverence or contempt. But out of any generation of those who claim that title, a select few become something more, elevated by both skill and circumstance. Most of us who write for a living remain just that: writers. Want to listen to this article out loud? Hear it on Slate Voice. ![]()
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