Ta-Nehisi Coates

American journalist and author whose Between the World and Me (2015) -- written as a letter to his teenage son -- became a defining document of contemporary Black American experience. His Atlantic essay The Case for Reparations (2014) forced mainstream reconsideration of reparations policy. A graduate of Howard University and heir to the tradition of James Baldwin.

Elevated literary journalism about race to canonical status through Baldwin-inflected prose. Made the structural-material case for reparations more vividly than any previous contemporary writer. Articulated a rigorous, unsentimental account of white supremacy as a foundational American condition. Later worked on Marvel's Black Panther, extending his cultural reach.