>> Hello.

I'm Dr. Ben Vinson III, the 18th president of Howard University.

And it is my pleasure to welcome you to this program, one of many we plan to bring to you as part of the @Howard series.

Howard University has the distinct pleasure of being the only HBCU to hold the license of a public television station across the country.

This special relationship allows WHUT to have unique access to the breadth and depth of academic content that is being produced on our campus.

From stimulating lecture series and panel discussions on a wide range of topics to one-on-one conversations with captains of industry and international leaders of business, politics and the arts.

From time to time, WHUT will broadcast some of that content in the form of full programs to short excerpts that we believe will surely stimulate and engage you.

So sit back and enjoy.

We're proud to share with you some of what makes Howard University so special.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ >> Good evening, everyone.

Ooh, I love that sound.

Uh, my name is Rachel McCain.

I am a senior television and film major, playwriting minor from Brooklyn, New York.

[ Crowd cheers ] Thank you, New York.

Just shy of two years ago, I took my first course with Professor Ta-Nehisi Coates.

I, along with my nine classmates, boarded a bus on campus bound for rural Virginia, and we spent two incredible weeks together, immersed in nature and in thought.

This was the Zora Neale Hurston Advanced Writers Workshop, and I had the pleasure of taking a second course with Professor Coates that fall, where we focused on nonfiction essay writing.

Having him as a professor has fundamentally changed how I approach my writing, and I am forever grateful for both of those experiences and the friendships and writing partners that have come out of them.

The ability to discern truth amidst lies and propaganda is integral to maintaining the fabric of our democracy.

We owe it to ourselves and to the generations to come to shine a light on issues that maybe folks seek to bury.

The ability to disseminate factual information artfully is a powerful skill and one that Professor Coates absolutely possesses.

We're gathered here this evening to hear this special conversation between two outstanding writers and Howard faculty members.

First Dr. Dana Williams.

[ Cheers and applause ] A daughter of Grambling State University, Dana Williams is the dean of the Graduate School of Howard University and professor of English.

She earned both her MA and doctorate from Howard University in African-American Literature, and she is an advisory board member for the Furious Flower Poetry Center and president of the Modern Languages Association.

Her latest book, "An Examination on Toni Morrison's Editorship," will be published by HarperCollins Amistad imprint in the fall of 2025.

[ Cheers and applause ] And next, the gentlemen you all have been waiting for.

Professor Ta-Nehisi Coates is Howard University's own New York Times best-selling author.

Ta-Nehisi Coates is the Sterling Brown Chair in Howard University Department of English, and he is an award-winning journalist, essayist and novelist.

His writing gained national attention in 2008 with the publication of "The Case for Reparations" in The Atlantic magazine.

In 2015, also for The Atlantic, he published "The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration."

Professor Coates has a long, celebrated run as the author of Marvel's "Black Panther" comic series from 2016 to 2021 and the "Captain America" comic series from 2018 to 2021.

He is the author of four books, two memoirs, and one just released, "The Message."

Tonight, we are gathered here to hear from Professor Coates about his newest literary endeavor, "The message."

[ Cheers and applause ] Please give a very warm welcome to Ta-Nehisi Coates!

[ Cheers and applause ] >> So, good evening.

[ Indistinct shouting ] >> Thank you.

That was Monday.

Already older.

But thank you.

Good to be here, y'all.

>> We talked about that a little bit backstage when, um, you will be able to hear a little bit in his voice that he's a bit under the weather, but I can assure you, there's no place like home.

So, he's here.

>> Absolutely not.

>> And we joked a little bit, um, that it's probably just fatigue because we're older.

>> Older.

Older.

>> Literally.

>> Old.

Emphasis on that "D." >> Yes.

So, of course, we want to say welcome home.

You're never too far away from the place.

But it's always good to be home and to be well-received.

We also want to have a conversation tonight that's a kind of uniquely Howard conversation.

Those of you who have been following some of the press around the book, and, of course, he has to do it, so he knows it all.

So you'll be able to have and to watch certain conversations any number of places.

So tonight we're going to have a uniquely Howard conversation.

We're going to try our best to make sure that we get some student voices in the room very especially.

But then to talk about some of those things that you may not get to talk about otherwise.

So just a little bit of background.

You all have probably heard what the book is about, which is why you're here, and you'll tell us a little bit about it.

But the book, ultimately he has already begun to say, is a message to his students.

My first question was, what exactly was that assignment that ended up with a whole book?

Because I know you didn't expect your students to do a whole book, but you did it.

So tell us about the assignment that led to the message.

>> Yeah.

No.

Um.

Wow.

It's so good to be here, y'all.

[ Cheers and applause ] Um...

Uh, I'm not going to go all Ari Melber or Michael Eric Dyson, but I will say, uh, um, I'm sorry I left you.

That's what I'll say.

I'm sorry I left you.

Um, I've been teaching writing, uh, weirdly enough, almost as long as I've actually been a professional writer.

Um, my first, uh, real writing experience was down in Lawton, obviously very, very different than here, but in some ways very similar to here in terms of the population.

Um, and since that time, I've taught in prisons, I've taught in public schools, uh, I've taught in different kinds of universities.

I've taught, uh, up at MIT, um, taught at NYU, taught at CUNY, and I've taught here.

And, um, while I don't like to rank which group of students I enjoyed more, um, what I will say is there's something about the very geography of walking on this campus, um, and interacting with this particular group of students that is very, very different.

The stakes are immediately heightened.

You know, because you don't come to Howard University just to get a degree, right?

You know, it's, uh, as I put it in the book, there is an emancipatory mandate already written into who we were.

And so, you know, in teaching, I mean, one of the great things is that there was never much distance, as I say in the book, between, you know, the fact that we were trying to craft ourselves as writers, trying to learn the best way to use language to make the world clear to those who didn't necessarily see what we saw, but that that was also connected to our politics, and that there wasn't too much distance between the two.

And weirdly enough, that actual like undercurrent of folks already knowing, you know, you know, at other places I've taught, you know, I will say I had, you know, do these sort of political lectures and say -- like, I never had to do that here because my students, you know, already knew.

Weirdly enough, and I was scared to put this in the book, but the first session that we had when we were out in Virginia, I had no Black writers on my syllabus.

I looked up one day, and I was like, "There are no Black writers on here."

But the thing is, the kids I was teaching, like I didn't have to establish a baseline.

They knew.

So it's not that Black writers didn't come up.

It's not that Black writers weren't present.

We actually had some Black writers who, you know, were piped in into the class, but they were -- it was already there.

It was just kind of baseline.

It allowed us to explore.

I would never do that anywhere else, you know, obviously.

And so that first assignment, which was actually the second semester.

That's what I was, you know, really writing about, um, we were trying to learn to tell stories that were personal, that were close to us, um, and that were conveyed with a kind of emotion.

And it was only one assignment, I believe, that entire semester It was basically one essay they just worked on the whole time and workshopped with each other.

And I was in Dakar, Senegal, at the same time I was teaching.

I had to take this trip.

I went to Dakar, Senegal.

I had to do one of the classes from Dakar, which is what the first essay is about, and I said, "Okay, so here's what I'm gonna do.

When I come back, I'm going to submit to you because you guys have been submitting to critique and workshop.

I'm going to submit to you what it meant for me to go to Dakar and to go to Africa for the first time, and then you can critique me."

And of course, the semester ended, and I was not done, um, which was par for the course, uh, for Ta-Nehisi Coates at Howard University.

So that was normal.

But as I say in the book, you know, I wasn't lying, you know, what I wrote in the book.

But I did not leave you guys.

I was not done.

This is my essay.

I'm back.

I'm here.

I have the assignment, I do, I finished it.

[ Applause ] It went a little long.

I'm sorry.

>> Well, part of what doing the work requires is a certain level of commitment.

And obviously that commitment also meant a commitment that was split.

So you had your students that you still had to engage while you were in Senegal.

And we were joking a little bit because he would actually Zoom in to the class, and they were like, "This dude has no chill, like he's in a whole nother country with bad Wi-Fi, and he wants us on this line."

What speaks to that commitment to teaching writing specifically?

>> So one reason why I wanted to come in, because I haven't gotten that question anywhere.

Um, I get a lot of questions about Palestine, which I'm sure we'll talk about, and I'll happily answer.

But there's a very specificity, as you as you said earlier, you know, to having this conversation here.

I mean, it was the fact that the stakes were understood.

You know what I mean?

It was like all of the students I had here at Howard University understood the connection between writing and politics.

And so it's like, um, I was really hard on them.

You know what I mean?

I was really, really hard on them, and I was really hard on them because I'm hard on myself, you know, I think and I write about this in the book.

You know, we have a lot of, um, professors who doubled as writers who liked to, you know, talk about the problems with this generation of students.

Um, but, you know, I've always been of the mind.

And, you know, maybe I got this from my mom that, you know, if you're in a position of authority and you're the educator, you know, you got to start with a critique of yourself.

You know what I mean?

So if you feel like... [ Applause ] ...your students ain't this and your students ain't that, you know, the first question is, what are you doing?

You know, and so, like, I always felt like and I learned this, you know, over the course of being a teacher, I would come in that class and I'd try to convey as much energy as I possibly can to you.

It's almost like a, um, there's an element of performance to it.

Not performance, like, you know what I mean, I'm making stuff up like, this isn't real, but it's like, if I am not excited about this, how can I ask you to be?

If I don't have the energy about this, how can I ask you to have energy about this?

You know, and so I always felt like, you know, it started with me.

And so, you know, being in Dakar, being in that place, I mean, you know, we get the hours lined up right, "Let's go.

Let's do it."

You know?

>> Yeah.

Well, you talked about the stakes.

And we say that often, many of us who are teaching will tell our students that the stakes are high.

And we have a generation where I literally say, "This is going to be the only time you going to hear me split this word."

The stakes is high.

>> Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

>> Because they really are.

So what does that mean to you as a teacher, to these students in particular, helping them to make those connections, but then to be at peace with the conflict that's going to come with speaking when the stakes are high?

>> Yeah.

So, you know, I got to a point in my career and I kind of write about this in the third essay where, um, I had not even so much a level of acclaim, but I had reached a point as a writer I just never thought I would reach, you know?

And I looked around, you know, and my colleagues, um, 99% of whom were white, um...

There's no other way to say this, and I can only say this here.

Like, they couldn't do what I could do.

>> Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

>> And I knew that, you know?

Um, some of them were better reporters, some of them were more beautiful writers, some of them were better historians, but none of them could do all three like I could do it, you know?

And I knew that.

But unlike them, I was alone.

There were not other, you know, Black writers around me, you know, um, and to the extent that there were, I could count them on one hand, you know, and when you looked out at the scope of the work that needed to be done, we were outnumbered and we were outgunned.

And we are outnumbered and we are outgunned.

Evil has so much in its hands.

White supremacy has so much.

I mean, just like the amount of resources and amount of just stuff they can throw at you.

You know, like the last half of this book is about Palestine.

I cannot tell you how much time me and my editors spent going over every word, trying to anticipate every defense.

Our enemies on the other side don't have to do none of that.

They just throw stuff at you, you know, and they throw enough, and eventually you get hit.

And that's how it works, you know?

Um, and so part of becoming a professor was -- and a professor here was the recognition that I am not enough.

You know, it really doesn't matter, you know, how I feel about, you know, my skill.

One person can't do it.

Two people can't do it.

Three of us can't do it.

We need more.

I need more of me.

You know what I mean?

And I came here for that.

Because this is the place that made me, you know, going up into Ethelbert Miller's office, you know what I mean, and getting my poetry critiqued, sitting out under the flagpole, you know, with Ben -- excuse me -- Professor Talton.

Forgive me, brother.

With Professor Talton.

You know, debating politics in front of, you know, Douglas Hall, all of that, reading poetry down in the punch-out.

That's how I got here.

You know what I mean?

And so what can I do to contribute to the process of generation of more of that?

>> How much of the way that you were influenced by faculty here influences the way that you teach and think?

In I think the first essay or the second, I think it's the first one where you talk about Jules Harrell, who is still -- >> Oh, man.

Wow.

Jesus, that was something.

Oh, it was huge.

It is huge.

I mean, the best of them were just gigantic.

And Dr. Harrell, you know, obviously I tell the story from class, you know, in the book, but he would just let me come down there in office hours and just debate and talk politics or about whatever I was reading and he would just engage.

He would just sit there and engage.

You know, and having that, you know, the feeling that the relationship went actually beyond the classroom, because what that says is, "I am invested in you in a different kind of way.

What we are doing here is different."

You know what I mean?

We're not just -- you know, "Obviously we're giving grades.

That's what we have to do.

But that doesn't cover the scope.

I'm not just preparing you to go out into the world to get a job.

You know, I'm preparing you to go out and change the very frame of the thing, you know?"

And so, no, it was gigantic.

You know, I think about it all the time when I'm teaching.

>> I would use that same -- >> That's what I mean about energy, too, by the way.

You know, for him to come in there, like that took something for him to do that, you know?

>> Absolutely.

Every time a student is in office hours for extended periods of time and they say, "I know you're busy, but," and you know what they're saying is, "I still need more of this."

And they're giving us energy as much as we were getting energy as well.

I'll take that same question and ask how much of that kind of fortification prepared you for what I imagine is the heat that comes from that third essay, which I think we can talk about a little bit more now.

>> Um, it probably did, but like what I think about is, um... What I think about is like, uh, before I left for Palestine, I called, um, my good friend Eve Ewing, who taught the first workshop with me when we were down in the woods in Virginia, and I called Professor Ewing, and she was going with me.

She was, you know, one of the delegates, among the delegation of writers that was going to go over here for this, um, Palestine Festival of Literature.

And I said, "Eve, I'm scared.

She said, "Yeah, I'm scared too."

And not like, physically scared.

Like, there was this kind of just nameless fear that I -- I couldn't understand it.

And as we talked it out, what I came to realize even during that conversation or later, was that I was going to see something.

>> Yeah.

I don't know if you remember this, but we talked about it a little bit before.

You said, "I'm scared I'm not going to not be able to write about this.

I'm going to have to write about this."

>> Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And that was the feeling at the time.

And I knew if I saw something like, you know, it is what it is, you know?

Um, and so I feel like, you know, during the course of that conversation, we're talking about fear and we're talking about safety, and we're talking about a life, um, that is untroubled.

And it's like, but we're in a tradition.

Like, Douglas Hall is actually named after somebody.

Right?

And this man, like, published a narrative.

He wrote, he was a writer.

Beautiful writer, by the way.

He wrote and he wrote at a time that he had siblings still enslaved.

And he wrote at a time when at any moment somebody could have dragged him back into slavery.

What about Ida B.

Wells?

I mean, this was our actual conversation.

What about Ida B.

Wells?

You know, what a death sentence on her head going back down South, repeatedly investigating lynching.

Why are we here?

Like, seriously, why are we here?

What right do we have in 2023 to call ourselves in the tradition and to say we going to look away because it makes us safe?

But we didn't get here by being safe.

Our ancestors were not safe.

So what right do we have to our safety?

And so once I understood that, like, what I find is like by myself, like I can be a coward, right?

But if I understand that there are other people at stake, then I'm tied to something, you know what I mean, that either has -- You know, I talk about the message, and, you know, I was talking to a friend.

I said, "It is about the people who are not here.

It is about ancestors, and it's about youth that are not yet born."

I'm connected to them.

And so I have larger responsibilities.

And once I understand it that way, that it's not just me, it's like, "Okay, well, what we got to do is what we got to do.

You know, it becomes like you don't even think about, like, the heat anymore.

You know it's going to come and you try to prepare, but it's like it really has no relevance on what -- there is no not doing this.

That's just not -- that's not on the menu.

So it is what it is.

[ Applause ] >> A part of that essay is reporting what you see, but there's also that personal view of it.

And the clarity around what you feel is either a responsibility or a compulsion to tell a story that's not being told otherwise.

How do you navigate telling the story of people who have some cultural affinity, some identity with something that you can experience as a person of African descent?

How did you navigate and thread that needle between doing that and telling the story without imposition?

You know, when some people tell our stories or tell stories of other people, they impose themselves onto the story.

You're present and distant in that essay, very explicitly, and I think it was strategic.

Tell us a little bit more about the thinking that goes along with, how do I put this essay down and I got so much work to do in this one essay?

>> Well, I got to tell you guys a story really quick, and I'm going to embarrass somebody.

Is my brother Nathan Connolly here?

You here.

You texted me.

I know you around here.

There you go.

Okay.

Get up.

No, no.

Stand up brother, stand up.

Because Im'a tell y'all why.

Get that brother a hand.

[ Applause ] Y'all don't know.

Y'all don't know.

Y'all don't know about this brother.

So I told you I was at that point, right, where I felt like, you know, none of my colleagues could [bleep] with me, right?

Like, I'm the dude now, right?

I got it, right?

"Case for Reparations" comes out, it's being lauded everywhere.

Everybody like, "Oh, this is great.

Wow.

Look at what this dude did.

I can't believe he did it."

And Nathan Connolly, my brother, writes a piece and he writes a generally laudatory piece about "The Case for Reparations."

He said, "It's one problem."

He said, "It's one problem."

He said, "This Israel section, this reparations from the state of Germany," he said, "That's a problem."

He's the first person I heard that from.

He wasn't the only person.

[ Applause ] I didn't know Professor Connolly at the time.

You know, since then we, you know, you know, gotten quite close.

But I didn't know him at the time, but his voice was always in the back of my head, right?

And what he was really saying is, and this is tough, man, this is like the harder part of living within, you know, a heritage and a legacy.

It's difficult enough to stand for yourself, but to understand that in standing for yourself, you are standing actually against something larger.

And sometimes that larger thing will offer you prizes, it'll offer you temptation if you will just abandon your principles and join it against other people.

>> Yeah.

>> And he was saying, "That's wrong.

That's wrong."

And I knew that, like, I had that activated somewhere in the back of my head.

But, you know, you're trying to make your way through and sometimes you forget it.

And so, like when I think about the second half of that essay, I think, like I knew that to make my own reparation, like it wouldn't be enough to, like, sign a letter.

You know, I couldn't go to a rally and, you know, yell "Free Palestine" or whatever.

I am a writer.

I have to do it in the same way I did "The Case for Reparations."

I have to deploy the same sort of tools and the same sort of resources if I can.

But you're right.

The difference was this was not my struggle.

Right?

And so even though like a lot of that is, you know, through my eyes, there was a distancing that I had to do.

And I think what you're picking up on is, um, there's something that I'm scared of even now that I think about, like, and I'm observing over the past week, um, so many of my Palestinian brothers and sisters, so many of my Arab brothers and sisters have called me and texted me to say thank you.

But what inevitably follows after that is "Because we could not do that."

And "because we could not do that" is not "because we are not capable of doing that."

In fact, they're more capable than me of doing it.

You know, because they've been living it their entire lives.

And so what I feared, even in writing this, and probably what I fear now, is like, I don't want to be the face of this.

And it's not that I don't want to be the face of it because of the heat.

I don't mind that at all.

But, you know, we're supposed to come -- like that whole thing about there not being enough of us.

What I hope is happening, what I hope is happening, is that a year from now, when this conversation takes place, um, and when it takes place, you know, on a high level or, you know, amongst the organs of our major media, um, that the people who are being bombed have a voice.

>> Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

>> That's what's supposed to happen.

[ Applause ] I'm here because I have to be here.

Um, but I don't want to be here.

It's not right that I'm here.

I'm here because some other things happened.

Some people have been injured and been kept out.

I say this everywhere I go.

I am in the field of journalism and I cannot think of -- I cannot think of a major news organization with a bureau chief in Tel Aviv or in Jerusalem who is Palestinian.

Now, I might have missed one, but I'm telling you, I'm not going to get off of one hand.

I'm not going to get off of one hand.

And the insanity of that is like, imagine -- And this was our history once.

This was actually true of us.

So we know.

Imagine having to cut on the TV or read the newspaper and any coverage of race and racism in this country, there are no Black people doing it.

Now, we know about that.

There was a time when it was that way, but that's basically where we are, and I'm sorry, I'm extending this a little bit.

This is actually really, really important to us.

This is not a favor to Palestinians that I'm talking about.

I'm talking about us as Americans who own that occupation, who own that war.

We are not getting the full story.

We don't understand what we are invested in.

[ Applause ] How many of us know that every single fighter that drops a bomb on Gaza is an American fighter?

We provided those.

Not just the bombs, the planes.

This is us.

This is really, really us.

And there are a forces in the world that want to continue that bombing and want to continue that war and want to continue that apartheid.

And central to that is pushing the people who are victims of that system out of the frame, not giving them the right to speak.

We know about that.

We know all about that.

You know, and so it is in our interest, it's essential to us so that we have the full information, you know, that everybody have a voice in this.

And so when I was writing this, I did need some distance.

You know, I just -- I don't want to be, you know, that guy.

Yeah.

>> Yeah.

It came across well.

I think also it was clear that you understood why you could write this when someone else might not be able to.

And you alluded to it a little bit with there's a whole media complex that makes decisions about whose voices get heard, whose voices don't get heard, who gets to speak, who doesn't, how certain stories are cast.

And we seen some of that even with your interviews.

So tell us a little bit about the process of publishing.

You mentioned working with the editor, going line for line to make sure that you didn't have any landmines that could be avoided.

But also, how do you defend this?

But even the process with your publisher, which I imagine has the rights to refuse your book, but then you have to also say, "This is going to be the book, or there will not be another book."

>> So, you know, I had to be honest about this.

I got no pushback at all on this.

I mean, I would tell you.

I swear, I would tell you if I did.

I put them on blast in a moment.

Um, but I didn't, I didn't, I didn't.

Um, I think some of that is probably trust in my editors.

Some of that is, you know, trust in me.

Um, some of that is the fact that they'll probably sell a lot of books.

>> I'm sure that's plenty of it, because capitalism does its thing.

>> I mean, yes, it will.

Yes, it will.

And, you know, you have to -- Like, I'm aware of that, right?

And so what that is, is that means you now have a license again.

And so what are you going to use it for?

You know?

>> Yeah.

And so if I got house money now you know, let's do it.

You know, let's use it for this.

Having said that, I do -- Your process question is exactly right.

That does not mean that there wasn't extensive process.

One of the advantages of writing "The Case for Reparations" at The Atlantic was that, I don't know, I had like five fact checkers, three copy editors, three different levels of, you know, editors.

You know, the process was tight and the amount of resources that went into making it tight were just incredible.

So I knew, given the amount of stuff this was going to stir up, that this had to be really, really tight.

And so, um, obviously me and my editor, Chris Jackson, we went back and forth a lot.

Um, we had multiple, multiple Israeli readers, multiple Palestinian readers, um, who were allowed to give their input and actually helped it, made it, you know, uh, stronger.

Um, we had a team of copy editors, all of this.

And this was like every sentence.

I mean, I'll never forget.

Um, there was a line in here where I was trying to describe where I was coming from when I'm in the Old City of Jerusalem, and this is the stuff you got to catch.

One of the guys told me, he said, "No, you were facing East, not West."

You know what I mean?

Like, all of that stuff has to be, like, lined up perfectly.

And if I'm honest with you, you know what?

We actually still missed some stuff.

So we got to post, like, the mistakes we made, you know, on there, so that we're completely transparent, you know, and then they'll get corrected you know, in the ebooks and the other editions.

But no, it was -- this was the hardest book, by far, by far.

>> Say more.

In what way?

>> It had to be tight.

It just had to be airtight.

And it has to be tight.

And at the same time, you can't give any ground.

So there's a way -- And I'm talking to my young writers in here right now.

Um, there is a way when forces are arrayed against you where sometimes, you know, one way to do things is you start hedging your language, right?

Rachel will talk about that.

I hated that, I hated that, I hated vague language.

I hated, you know, kind of ambivalent language.

Say what you got to say.

You should say it as strong as you possibly can.

But you better be right.

You need both, you know?

And if you're right, there's no reason not to say it as strong as you possibly can, you know, and as aggressive.

So balancing those two things, like you got to be right, you know what I mean?

You got to have your -- I'm sorry -- your feet underneath of you.

And you got to try to knock the dude out.

You know what I mean?

Like, you can't, you know, be playing around.

You got to go do the thing.

And so balancing those two is, um, is the challenge.

>> And also being willing to take the critique, being willing to share, something that I know that you share with the writers as well.

So you are not going to be right by yourself, but you can trust that you got some smart friends.

>> That's right.

>> And they're not going to let you go out there and get beat up.

>> That's right.

That's exactly it.

And that was the, you know, the point of having Israeli and Palestinian readers.

And when I say that, I want to be clear about that.

This was not, "Let me assemble, you know, a range of, you know, political opinions and give them input."

I mean, these are the people who understood what I was trying to do and was sympathetic to what I was trying to do but knew that it had to be tight.

You know what I mean?

Um, and there are things that are not -- there are versions of this that do not exist because somebody said, "Brother, that's not going to work."

>> Okay.

>> You know what I mean?

There are things in this that are -- I mean, quite a few actually that are not there because somebody who knew more than me said, "Brother, that don't work," you know?

>> So I want to come back to the Senegal essay.

But before then, you mentioned and you described the books as children.

So this is, um -- >> Everybody likes that.

That's so weird.

I was just sitting on my butt like, "Man, how do I describe my relationship?"

>> No, but that's what writers do, I think.

We say like, these are our kids, and once they're in the world, you just hope the best for them.

>> Yeah, yeah, yeah.

>> Realistically, you're like following the kid around.

>> Yes.

Yes, yes.

Yes, yes, yes.

>> So this question comes from Ethan Bryant who said -- All right, Ethan.

Or fans of Ethan.

[ Cheers and applause ] Ethan said, "Assuming that this book is your newborn, what is your prognosis for this kid?"

Because just give a little bit of description about like your first book is your oldest child, and so on.

Give the backstory for those of us who didn't get advanced copies.

>> Oh, man.

I think it's -- God, I'm gonna try to get this right.

Um, the beautiful struggle is like a kid that's just really, really solid.

Uh, "Between the World and Me" is the kid that everybody thinks is gifted but really just talks too much.

[ Laughter ] Who I love but may not always like.

Uh, "We were Eight Years in Power" is the book that's kind of insecure because of "Between the World and Me."

Um, and "The Water Dancer" is the most confident.

>> She's -- "The Water Dancer" is also a girl just so we're saying.

>> That's the only girl I have.

My baby girl.

And she is the most confident and actually is the most like me, is a better version of me.

Um, and that's how I think about her.

Um, while the message -- I was joking about -- Somebody asked me this in Baltimore yesterday, and I was joking.

I look like an MFA -- MMA fighter.

That's what it looks like.

You know, it looks like he/she/they want to fight.

You know, that's what it seems like.

You know, this one likes to fight, you know?

"Don't push me," you know?

So we'll see.

>> I appreciate it.

One more student question, and then we'll talk about, uh, Senegal just a little bit.

This one's from Haliya Ben.

[ Cheers and applause ] And I have to tell you, Haliya has three really deep questions, so I'm going to pick one.

It says, "In 'Between the World and Me,' you describe the fear of being godless.

Does that spiritual sense of uncertainty remain?

And what does the concept of faith look like for you now, considering" -- Wait a minute.

These Howard students.

This is a freshman.

"Considering your evocation of ancestors and the words like 'hate' in the book?"

There is some spirituality in this book that -- Mind you, she's read them all.

So she's like, "I'm seeing the evolution of his kind of spiritual journey."

>> Who is this kid?

Who is it?

>> Ben knows Haliya.

>> Is she here?

Can you stand up?

[ Cheers and applause ] >> We can't see her, but she's up there.

>> Yeah.

Yo, um... >> There she is.

>> Hmm.

[ Cheers and applause ] >> So I'll never forget when "Between the World and Me" came out and I was on tour.

And, like, I hadn't been back to Howard in a long time, and I came, and, like, I guess it was the freshman class, I think that read the book, and I was with like a symposium of them.

And you got to understand, I had been answering questions all around the country.

And I came back here, and them kids started asking these questions, and I was like, "Y'all are just as smart as I remember."

Like, it's like, like I had this memory, like, this hazy because I hadn't taught here or been back -- I'd been back for homecoming, but I has this like hazy memory of when I was here and this being, like, the smartest place in the world.

But I was like, "Maybe that's nostalgia, you know?

Maybe I'm like," you know what I mean?

And I had this thing like, when I went out in the world, even when I worked, I was like, "Y'all are not really up to snuff," you know?

I know you got the Harvard and the Columbia, but y'all really ain't that.

And then I came back and I was like, "Yup.

I was like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah."

And that question, I probably will not hear a smarter question for the rest of the tour.

And this is just the beginning.

Um...Wow.

[ Applause ] And you can tell by my long preamble that I'm trying to dodge the question.

[ Laughter ] That's a deep reader right there.

And I don't know.

>> You don't want her second question.

>> No.

>> Just go with this one.

>> Right, right, right.

I don't know.

I mean, I don't know.

I mean, that is -- you know, I had a buddy, a really good friend of mine.

And, you know, he read it, and this buddy of mine is, uh, you know, he's Christian.

And we talk, you know, a lot about religion.

And, um, he said, "This is your most spiritual book."

I said, "Really?"

He said, "Yeah."

And of course, when you're invoking ancestors, you're invoking something more than what's here, right?

Um, you can't say you're invoking ancestors, I don't think, and I don't know, I probably would try to, um, but I don't think it works.

I don't think it works under the logic.

You can't say you're not invoking some form of spirituality, right?

Um, I have not had the time to think about that.

It's been raised by other people, though.

You know what I mean?

Like, you're not -- I mean, they may not be as smart as you.

Um, but it has been raised, and it's a thing.

I mean, you know, I...

When I was like a kid in Baltimore, I would see people, you know, other boys who I grew up around and like, they would get into something with somebody.

And, um, it was just clear to me from the look in their eyes that like, they would take it wherever it needed to go.

You know?

Um, and I wasn't that kid.

I was never that kid.

And I told my wife a few weeks ago, before this book came out, I told her, like Palestine was the first time I understood that.

You know what I mean?

Like, it was like, what it's going to be is what it's going to be, but there really is -- I can't describe it.

It's not like bravery or courage.

It's just like a kind of feeling of...

...I have to walk forward.

Like there is no walking back.

Like, I don't know what you're talking about.

There is no walking -- Like I feel like to see what I saw -- and there's so much that's not in that book -- but to see what I saw and not write this is like a kind of death.

Um, and I don't have another word for it except to say like a kind of soul or spiritual death.

Um, it is like a betrayal of something deep.

I literally don't know why I'm here.

Like, if I don't see... ...oppressed people and say something about it, I don't know what the awards were for.

Like, I don't -- I don't know what me coming to Howard was for.

I don't know why I came to Howard if that's if that's what it is.

I don't know why I'm here teaching y'all, you know?

And so, um, I say it to say that that is like the first time that I felt something outside of myself, something bigger than myself, like with that kind of force.

Um, and so... it's not so much that I'm dodging your question.

I don't quite have an answer yet.

You know, I'm working on it.

[ Applause ] >> So we'll talk a little bit about the essay written around Senegal in Senegal.

How does place inform the way that you write and the way that you think about how you tell a story?

>> Yeah, that's a great question, man.

Um, you know, I was here at Howard.

I was so like, "I want to be a great writer.

I want to be a great writer."

And I would take these poems up, and he would get a critique.

And he said, "Listen, man, you know, I can do this all day.

But the problem is you need to like, go join Peace Corps.

You need to go live, like you haven't lived.

You're 18.

You know what I mean?

You're 18 and you just don't have the body of experience to really, you know, write like to do what you want to do.

You know, it's not just that, you know, the skill will come, but really what you need is like a life, you know, and you don't really have that yet because you're 18."

Um, and I thought about that, and I didn't know what he was talking about, but it stuck.

Like, it's one of those things that sort of sticks in the back of your head and replays and then, you know, eventually... And one of the things I talk about very early in the book, you know, when I'm talking to, you know, addressing my students is like, um, when you're a writer, it is as if the thing you want to write about is this vast wilderness, and your task is to map the wilderness.

And as a writer, you can't, like, sit here in your chair and look at the wilderness and map it.

Now, a lot of writers will try to do that, they're bad writers.

A lot of them.

Um, most of your columnists in your major newspapers, like, they sit on their butt and try to map the wilderness without actually walking it.

But if you're a writer, you have to walk the thing.

You know, you have to, like, see it up close.

You gotta touch it.

You gotta feel it.

You gotta know where the river is, where the ravine is.

And you gotta see the river.

And you gotta see an elevation.

And know that this is a hill and this is actually a mountain, this is a spring, you know, because -- And I guess in a sense, it's more than a map.

What we are trying to do is not just have people say that we're right or be convinced by our writing.

You know, we are trying to haunt people.

And what I mean by that is we are trying to have people read our work, put our work down, and not be able to escape it, to go to bed with it and dream about it.

You see, when I came back from Palestine, I dreamed about Palestine for three weeks.

And I may not quite get here, but what I'm trying to do is have you dream about Palestine for three weeks.

I have an emotion inside of me, and I'm trying to do all I can to convey that to you.

This is not just -- I mean, there are obviously facts in here.

It's not a litany of facts, you know, whereby you say, "Well, you know, he clearly proved himself," you know?

Because you'll say that and then you'll walk on.

But in your heart, you know, like the thing I just expressed where I say, "Look, I cannot look away."

What I'm really aiming for is for you not to be able to look away.

That's the goal of the writing, you know?

And to do that, you have to have that sense of place.

You have to visit it.

You gotta touch it.

I mean, for "Water Dancer," I had to, you know, go down into Virginia and see some things, you know, and feel some things.

It just -- it just, you know, wasn't possible without it.

You know, for "Between the World and Me," you know, I had to go meet, you know, our dearly departed Prince Jones' mom.

I had to talk to her.

I had to feel that.

Get that back, you know?

Um, and folks on the other side have the luxury of just sitting on their behinds and, you know, writing whatever, you know, and then going on with their lives.

But we need writers.

We need writers.

By which I mean... [ Applause ] ...people who are obsessed with this thing, you know, people who are a little different and write to make their readers obsessed with this thing, you know?

And, um, I just like, for me, like, I have to be in the place.

I have to feel a thing in order to have something, you know, for you to feel.

>> What was it about Senegal in particular that drew you to the place?

There are a number of places in West Africa that you could have gone or -- And I know it was your first time on the continent.

What was it about Senegal that was particularly moving or that moved you to write?

>> Um, wow, it's the smallest things.

I was back in Baltimore.

I used to play the djembe.

And all of my teachers were Senegalese, and I remembered that, and that always stuck in my mind.

And so, you know, even back then, I always wanted to go to Senegal, you know, um, and then, you know, I kind of began to study French, you know, and began that.

And so it kind of felt like a natural, you know, a natural thing to do.

Um, yeah.

Gotta start somewhere.

So that was it.

>> So traveling since then, um, have you had experiences?

This is almost cheating towards the "what next" question.

Uh, we'll get ready for a couple of student questions.

And I'll just say that we have begun to adopt this rule that Professor Coates has had when he engages students, like the first three students -- The first three questions have to be from students.

We upping the ante a little bit?

>> Yes, we are.

>> All the questions have to be from students?

So students, what we're going to ask you to do is to jot down your question, to formulate them.

And Professor Talton has also said don't do the um, part one and part two so that we can get as many voices in the room as possible.

So the microphones will be available to you in the aisles.

So you begin to jot down your questions so that you're formulated, they're formulated before you speak so that you can have the question ready when we come to you.

The kind of cheat question of what's next.

In terms of place, what has been ruminating in your mind, um, around things that you feel compelled to write about and want us to look at in a hard way?

Is it even possible to do that post-tour or like when you're in the launch?

>> No, no, no, it's already -- I mean, it's already with me.

I mean, oddly enough, I think the United States of America, the answers are here, and I'll tell you why.

Um... Palestine was the place where I could see colonialism up close, like I actually see it.

Um, it like left the realm of theory.

And what do I mean by that?

Um, we are in a debate -- and it's really, really important to say this -- like we're in a debate around words and what words can be used and what words cannot be used.

Um, and it really became clear to me over there that some of the words -- or even when I came back -- that are most, um, perceived as most inflammatory, like "colonialism," like "apartheid," are in fact the most accurate.

Um, and I write about this in the book, um, that these are not just grenades that are tossed, you know what I mean, to upset people.

They, in fact, are actually accurate words for systems that are put in place.

Um, so apartheid is not just something that some college kids somewhere say to shame people, although more power to them.

It is the conclusion of Amnesty International.

It's the conclusion of Human Rights Watch.

It's the conclusion of the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem.

It's the conclusion of the Palestinian human rights group, Al-Haq.

It is the word that the Prime Minister, Ehud Barak, used to describe where his country was headed.

Israeli prime minister.

It is the word that the Israeli prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, used to describe where his country was headed.

This is very, very important because, like they'll try to bamboozle you, you know what I mean, try to make you think, like, white is Black and up is down, but the words are the words.

So when I say "colonialism," I don't just say that to shame somebody or make somebody feel bad.

I say that because I've read the documents of the founders and that's what they said.

That's what the Zionist documents actually say.

I'm not saying "Zionist" as a slur.

I'm saying people who labeled themselves that way, that's what they said.

And you read those documents, and one of the most heartbreaking things about them is you see these allusions to other instances of colonialism.

And most of the allusions I saw were not to Black people but to Indigenous Americans here.

It's constant.

Like constant.

It's a constant drumbeat of America did this to them so we are right to do what we're doing to the Palestinians.

They were savages over there.

They're savages here.

The much-hailed historian, Israeli historian Benny Morris, says something like a cage has to be constructed for them.

And when his [indistinct] -- excuse me -- says, "How can you say that?"

he says, "Even the great American democracy was made possible by the extermination of the American Indian."

I saw so much of this, and I said, "This is actually a missing piece for me.

Like I've been writing about American history."

And this is the beautiful thing about, like, the intellectual life, like you think you know something, you think you see it, but you don't, you don't.

You saw a part of it.

And I saw part of it.

In "The Case for Reparations," I saw part of it, you know?

But understanding like, um, the historical weight, the global, um, influence and impact that this country set when it committed a genocide against the indigenous people of this continent, I cannot -- it had global ramifications.

It was the prototype for what happened around the world.

I can't tell you how many times I've seen it cited.

And so if I were to go anywhere, I would go deeper into here, because this is actually an experience that I don't, you know, completely understand and would like to understand more.

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