Staff Pick: The Message

As a librarian, I find the afterlives of books as interesting, sometimes even more so, than the books themselves. Ta-Nehisi Coates writes in The Message that he has typically regarded his books as children who live their own lives after he released them. However, in this book, he departs from this approach to consider the impact of his writing on others and the responsibility of writers. This book documents his process of engaging in conversations and coming into new understanding.

Coates frames the book as a message for his son, his writing students, and all young writers. The first essay is a classic writing professor piece about the importance of journalism. He traces the legacies of Black journalists in reshaping the American concept of democracy and equality to argue that not only is journalism not a luxury, but, in fact, it is world-building.

The following essays pair a location with the afterlife of a specific writing. In Dakar, Senegal, he grapples with the influence of Josiah Nott’s Types of Mankind, which denied Africans the capacity for civilization, upon his own vision of African possibility. In Chapin, South Carolina, he witnesses a school board debate on a ban for his bestseller Between the World and Me and demonstrates the political investment in story as a uniquely transformative tool. In Israel-Palestine, he reckons with criticisms of his pivotal essay in The Atlantic, “The Case for Reparations,” and questions the lack of Palestinian journalists in American newsrooms.

For librarians, there is much to appreciate in this book. Look out for strong source evaluation, expansive citations for relevant readings, and insights into the work of Coates’s father, librarian and publisher Paul Coates. What’s more is his demonstration of intellectual humility and a willingness to take responsibility for his role as a prominent voice in American discourse. Instead of dismissing criticism or avoiding controversy, Coates shows us what dialogue with a moral compass can look like.