The Message: A book talk with author and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates
Date and Time
September 24, 2025
6:00 pm - 7:00 pm
Date: Wednesday, September 24, 2025
Time: 6:00pm-7:00pm EDT. Doors open at 5:30pm.
Location: In person at Fong Auditorium, Boylston Hall (Harvard University). RSVP with a valid Harvard email address. Harvard ID required for attendance.
Note: Spaces for this event have been filled. If you wish to add your name to the waitlist, please click here.
Join us for a fireside chat with author and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates, who will be discussing his latest book, The Message. FXB Director Dr. Mary T. Bassett, MD, MPH, will deliver introductory remarks and the conversation will be moderated by Harvard University Professor of English Namwali Serpell, PhD.
About the speaker:
Ta-Nehisi Coates is an award-winning author and journalist. He is the author of the bestselling books The Beautiful Struggle, We Were Eight Years in Power, The Water Dancer, and Between the World and Me, which won the National Book Award in 2015. He was a recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship that same year. As a journalist with a career spanning over two decades, he’s written for numerous publications including The Washington City Paper, The Village Voice, The New Yorker, and The New York Times. During his time reporting for The Atlantic between 2008-2018, he penned numerous articles and essays, including the National Magazine Award-winning 2012 essay “Fear of a Black President” and the influential June 2014 essay “The Case For Reparations”. Ta-Nehisi also enjoyed a successful run writing Marvel’s Black Panther (2016-2021) and Captain America (2018-2021) comics series. Ta-Nehisi is currently writing the screenplays for the upcoming film Wrong Answer and the film adaptation of his first fiction novel, The Water Dancer. In the fall of 2022, he joined Howard University’s faculty as a writer-in-residence and the Sterling Brown Chair in the Department of English.
This is event is co-sponsored by the FXB Center for Health & Human Rights at Harvard University, the Palestine Program for Health and Human Rights, the Harvard University Department of English, and the Harvard History Department.
Please note that bag searches/wanding will be required for all attendees so please arrive early to facilitate a timely start.
Time: 6:00pm-7:00pm EDT. Doors open at 5:30pm.
Location: In person at Fong Auditorium, Boylston Hall (Harvard University). RSVP with a valid Harvard email address. Harvard ID required for attendance.
Note: Spaces for this event have been filled. If you wish to add your name to the waitlist, please click here.
Join us for a fireside chat with author and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates, who will be discussing his latest book, The Message. FXB Director Dr. Mary T. Bassett, MD, MPH, will deliver introductory remarks and the conversation will be moderated by Harvard University Professor of English Namwali Serpell, PhD.
About the speaker:
Ta-Nehisi Coates is an award-winning author and journalist. He is the author of the bestselling books The Beautiful Struggle, We Were Eight Years in Power, The Water Dancer, and Between the World and Me, which won the National Book Award in 2015. He was a recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship that same year. As a journalist with a career spanning over two decades, he’s written for numerous publications including The Washington City Paper, The Village Voice, The New Yorker, and The New York Times. During his time reporting for The Atlantic between 2008-2018, he penned numerous articles and essays, including the National Magazine Award-winning 2012 essay “Fear of a Black President” and the influential June 2014 essay “The Case For Reparations”. Ta-Nehisi also enjoyed a successful run writing Marvel’s Black Panther (2016-2021) and Captain America (2018-2021) comics series. Ta-Nehisi is currently writing the screenplays for the upcoming film Wrong Answer and the film adaptation of his first fiction novel, The Water Dancer. In the fall of 2022, he joined Howard University’s faculty as a writer-in-residence and the Sterling Brown Chair in the Department of English.
This is event is co-sponsored by the FXB Center for Health & Human Rights at Harvard University, the Palestine Program for Health and Human Rights, the Harvard University Department of English, and the Harvard History Department.
Please note that bag searches/wanding will be required for all attendees so please arrive early to facilitate a timely start.
Speaker remarks are based on their own scholarship and experience. As such, they speak for themselves, not for Harvard University.