Type: Public event
Host: Ford School

A deeper black: Race in America

Date & time

Jan 21, 2015, 5:10-6:00 pm EST

Location

Rackham Auditorium
915 E. Washington Street

This year's Motorola Lecture is part of the University of Michigan's 29th Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Symposium.

About Ta-Nehisi Coates:

Ta-Nehisi Coates delves into the conflicted and hopeful state of black America today. What does "black culture" mean? What is the continuing role of both the older and younger generations in shaping it? Where will gentrification, education, and the splintering (or unifying) of families take it? With an easy-going manner, an unashamedly erudite approach, and a journalist's grasp of narrative and clarity, Coates delivers an ear-to-the-ground (and Eyes on the Prize) talk that asks the small personal questions as well as the big historic ones.

Ta-Nehisi Coates is one of the most original and perceptive voices in black America—and one of our best writers, period. With rich emotional depth and a sonar sense of how pop culture, politics, and history shape discussions of diversity—his Atlantic cover story on slavery and race, "The Case for Reparations," is one of the most talked-about pieces of nonfiction in recent memory.

An Atlantic senior editor and writer, Ta-Nehisi Coates has penned many influential articles on race, masculinity, and politics. Last year, his lively Atlantic blog was named by Time as one of the 25 Best in the World. Coates is a former writer for The Village Voice, and a contributor to Time, O, and The New York Times Magazine. In 2012, he was awarded the Hillman Prize for Opinion and Analysis Journalism. His critically hailed debut book, "The Beautiful Struggle," is a memoir of growing up in Baltimore during the age of crack. 

About the Motorola Lecture:

Presented by the Institute for Research on Women & Gender and the Women’s Studies Department, with cosponsorship from the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies, the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, and the Office of the Vice Provost for Equity, Inclusion, and Academic Affairs, the biennial Motorola Lecture features an outstanding journalist who routinely addresses issues concerning gender in his or her reporting.