Congratulations are in order for visionary scholar and author Ta-Nehisi Coates, who just won the National Book Award for non-fiction for Between the World and Me, reports the New York Times.
The book explores being a Black man in America amidst today’s racially tense climate. Coates dedicated the highly coveted award to his friend, who was killed by police after being mistaken for a suspect.
Congratulations! Ta-Nehisi Coates Receives 2015 MacArthur Genius Grant
“Every day you turn on the TV and see some kind of violence being directed at Black people,” Coates said in his acceptance speech. “Over and over and over again. And it keeps happening.”
Coates, who recently won a MacArthur Genius Grant, said the book was written as a letter to his son.
“I can’t secure the safety of my son,” Coates said in his acceptance speech last night. “I just don’t have that power. But what I do have the power to do is say, ‘You won’t enroll me in this lie. You won’t make me part of it.'”