Video: Ta-Nehisi Coates Speaks At ETHS

EVANSTON, IL — The prominent journalist and author Ta-Nehisi Coates spoke at Evanston Township High School Wednesday at a free, public event sponsored by the nonprofit Family Action Network. Coates was interviewed by ETHS Principal Marcus Campbell before a crowd of more than 1,400 people in a wide-ranging discussion about writing, racism in America and his recently published of collection of essays written during and about the Obama administration, entitled, "We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy."

"One of the things I've tried to do in my work is to get the country to really tell the truth about its history," Coates said. "To really stop lying to itself."

Coates, a national correspondent for The Atlantic magazine, is a 2015 recipient of a MacArthur "Genius Grant" and one of the most renowned black public intellectuals in America. He has been compared to James Baldwin by author Toni Morrison.

The dying that's happening across parts of Chicago and other communities of color "is not an accident," he pointed out, citing decades of housing discrimination, the uneven application of the criminal justice system and an inequitable educational system.

"It's tough dealing with the effects of having a boot on your neck," Coates said. "But to understand the nature of the boot, to understand what's actually happening, is in its own way liberating and freeing."

Watch the full event below courtesy of the Family Action Network:

_{Top photo: Ta-Nehisi Coates interviewed by ETHS Principal Marcus Campbell Oct. 18 at an event sponsored by the Family Action Network | via YouTube}