This year marks the tenth-anniversary release of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me. Listen to his interview with NPR’s Michel Martin: https://www.npr.org/2025/07/07/1255296733/nprs-book-of-the-day-ta-nehisi-coates-between-the-world-and-me-anniversary

Coates’ book was released shortly after the 2015 shooting at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC, and soared in popularity after George Floyd’s murder in 2020— an event that propelled many books on race to bestseller lists. But now those same works face bans and restrictions in school curricula. Coates notes that this tension – books being sought after and then suppressed – is not new. He recalls Toni Morrison, a towering literary figure, enduring censorship throughout her career.

A comparable book we might turn towards with advice from a Black man to a younger family member is James Baldwin’s 1963 letter to his nephew, The Fire Next Time. Baldwin’s book may be seen as more hopeful than Coates’ – he puts more faith in love as a power that can transform a nation.

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