Ta-Nehisi Coates
National Book Award-winning author and MacArthur Fellow
We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy
In 2008, National Book Award-winning author Ta-Nehisi Coates went from believing that a black president was impossible, to being challenged by the sudden prospect of one. In his new book, We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy, Mr. Coates asks, “I remember how Obama caused me to question myself and my basic relationship with my country. All my life I had seen myself, and my people, backed into a corner, Had I been wrong?” Part memoir, part polemic, Mr. Coates offers his intimate and revealing perspective – the point of view of a young writer who begins his journey in an unemployment office in harlem and ends it in the Oval Office, interviewing Barack Obama.
We Were Eight Years in Power is a personal narrative that examines the symbiosis of Obama;s influence on American culture, Mr. Coates’ intellectual and professional growth, and the inspiring new voices, ideas, and movements that emerged together over this period. “We were eight years in power” was the lament of Reconstruction-era politicians as the American experiment in multiracial democracy ended with the rise of the Jim Crow south. Mr. Coates is a national correspondent for The Atlantic, and author of the #1 bestseller Between the World and Me, winner of the 2015 National Book Award for Nonfiction. He is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and has received the National Magazine Award and the Hillman Prize for Opinion and Analysis Journalism.
Event Sponsors
- Baker Demonstration School
- Chiaravalle Montessori School
- Erikson Institute
- Evanston Township High School D202
- Francis W. Parker School
- We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy
- New Trier Multifaith Alliance
- North Shore Country Day
- Youth & Opportunity United (Y.O.U.)
- YWCA Evanston/North Shore
Upcoming Events
“Hold These Truths”: A Table Reading
Joel de la Fuente
Award-winning stage and screen actor
Jeanne Sakata
Award-winning actor and playwright
Lisa Doi, Ph.D.
Assistant curator and project manager at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles
North Shore Country Day Auditorium
Note: Event start time is Central Time (CT).
NO REGISTRATION REQUIRED.

Parenting Anxiety: Breaking the Cycle of Worry and Raising Resilient Kids
Meredith Elkins, Ph.D.
Clinical psychologist, faculty member of Harvard Medical School, and co–program director, McLean Anxiety Mastery Program, McLean Hospital
Rebecca Jenkins
Superintendent of Libertyville School District 70 in Libertyville, IL
ON ZOOM
Mattering: The Secret to a Life of Deep Connection and Purpose (Event 1 of 2)
Jennifer Breheny Wallace
Award-winning journalist and bestselling author
Robert Waldinger, MD
Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, co-director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, and co-founder of the Lifespan Research Foundation
ON ZOOM


