Read James Baldwin’s “A Letter to My Nephew” and Ta-Nehisi Coates’s “A Letter to My Son” linked above (NOTE: read in that order). In writing “Between the World and Me” in 2015, Ta- Nehisi Coates took great inspiration from a similar essay written by James Baldwin in 1962 (borrowing the letter form to address a close relative). What intersections do you see between these two works? How do the pieces seem to be in dialogue with one another? Does it seem that much has changed in the half century separating the two essays? Do any of the works we have read this semester come to mind as you consider these essays?

Read James Baldwin’s “A Letter to My Nephew” and Ta-Nehisi Coates’s “A Letter to My Son”
linked above (NOTE: read in that order). In writing “Between the World and Me” in 2015, Ta-
Nehisi Coates took great inspiration from a similar essay written by James Baldwin in 1962
(borrowing the letter form to address a close relative). What intersections do you see between
these two works? How do the pieces seem to be in dialogue with one another? Does it seem
that much has changed in the half century separating the two essays? Do any of the works we
have read this semester come to mind as you consider these essays?

James Baldwin: https://progressive.org/magazine/letter-nephew/

Ta-Nehisi Coates: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/07/tanehisi-coates-between-the-world-and-me/397619/

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