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Ta-Nehisi Coates

Ta-Nehisi Coates - Ta-Nehisi Coates is a senior editor for The Atlantic, where he writes about culture, politics, and social issues for TheAtlantic.com and the magazine. He is the author of the memoir The Beautiful Struggle. More

Born in 1975, the product of two beautiful parents. Raised in West Baltimore—not quite The Wire, but sometimes ill all the same. Studied at the Mecca for some years in the mid-’90s. Emerged with a purpose, if not a degree. Slowly migrated up the East Coast with a baby and my beloved, until I reached the shores of Harlem. Wrote some stuff along the way.

Royalty

By Ta-Nehisi Coates
Feb 8 2011, 10:00 AM ET Comment

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So I just copped Civilization V, and I gotta say it's kinda cool to get to play as Askia The Great. Surely the "descendants of kings and queens" business is out of my system. Sort of. All people have a creation myth. My current one is tied to the American South. But the older one, the one that demands the re-readings of Chancellor Williams, that one that gave me my name (literally translated, sometimes, as "Land of the Blacks.") will always have some hold on me. 

As an adult, for me, black begins in on the Eastern shore of Maryland, in ports of Virginia and South Carolina. But living in a country where almost everyone is from across an ocean, it's always fun to tack some years on to the story.


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