He gained a wide readership during his time as national correspondent at The Atlantic, where he wrote about cultural, social, and political issues, particularly regarding African Americans and white supremacy.

[14] Coates's first name, Ta-Nehisi, is derived from an ancient Egyptian language name for Nubia (reconstructed as nḥsj)[15] – a region along the Nile river in present-day northern Sudan and southern Egypt.

[2] Coates's interest in literature was instilled at an early age when his mother, in response to bad behavior, would require him to write essays.

[25][31] His blog was praised for its engaging comments section, which Coates curated and moderated heavily so that "the jerks are invited to leave [and] the grown-ups to stay and chime in.

He had read Rutgers University professor Beryl Satter's book Family Properties: Race, Real Estate, and the Exploitation of Black Urban America,[35] a history of redlining that included a discussion of the grassroots organization the Contract Buyers League, of which Clyde Ross was a leader.

[38] In the book, he discusses the influence of his father W. Paul Coates, a former Black Panther;[39] the prevailing street crime of the era and its effects on his older brother;[7] his own troubled experience attending Baltimore-area schools;[40] and his eventual graduation and enrollment in Howard University.

[44][45] The title is drawn from a Richard Wright poem of the same name about a black man discovering the site of a lynching and becoming incapacitated with fear, creating a barrier between himself and the world.

[46] Coates said that one of the origins of the book was the death of a college friend, Prince Jones, who was shot by police in a case of mistaken identity.

[53] In 2016, Coates wrote the sixth volume of Marvel Comics' Black Panther series, which teamed him with artist Brian Stelfreeze.

[61] Coates also wrote a six-issue series called Black Panther and the Crew that addresses the problem of police killings and also suggests that the Marvel universe includes a number of previously unknown superheroes from the Bandung Conference.

[64] Coates's collection of previously published essays on the Obama era, We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy, was announced by Random House, with a release date of October 3, 2017.

The book's title is a quote from 19th-century African-American congressman Thomas E. Miller of South Carolina, who asked why white Southerners hated African Americans after all the good they had done during the Reconstruction Era.

It is a surrealist story set in the time of slavery and centers around a superhuman protagonist, Hiram Walker, who has a photographic memory but cannot remember his mother.

Walker is also able to transport people long distances by "conduction", which involves folding the Earth like fabric and allows him to travel across large areas via waterways.

[68] Coates's most recent nonfiction book, The Message, reflects on his visits to Dakar, Senegal; Chapin, South Carolina; and the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

[72] In 2021, he joined the Howard University faculty as writer-in-residence in the College of Arts and Sciences and holds the Sterling Brown chair in the English Department.

[74] As of 2019, Coates was working on America in the King Years, a television project with David Simon, Taylor Branch, and James McBride.

[78] Coates is set to adapt Rachel Aviv's 2014 The New Yorker article "Wrong Answer" into a full-length feature film of the same title, starring Michael B. Jordan and directed by Ryan Coogler.

Dokoupil was defended by Paramount chair Shari Redstone and other CBS staffers, including chief legal correspondent Jan Crawford, who said that a journalist is obliged to ask tough questions when interviewing someone presenting a one-sided view [85] [86] [87] In 2009, Coates lived in Harlem[2] with his wife, Kenyatta Matthews, and son, Samori Maceo-Paul Coates.

[25][88][89] His son's name is a reference to three people: Samori Ture, a Mandé chief who fought French colonialism, black Cuban revolutionary Antonio Maceo Grajales, and Coates's father, who was known by his middle name of Paul.