By Dr Bertrand Ramcharan
Seventh Chancellor of the University of Guyana
Ta-Nehisi Coates is one of America’s foremost writers, now a Professor at Howard University. His parents named him Ta-Nehisi to give him an identity with a great African civilization.
He has been in a life-long quest for justice for his Afro-American compatriots, and his message has spread to the world. He is a champion of reparations for slavery. He is a champion of the dignity and worth of every human being. He highlights situations of injustice.
He has recently visited Senegal and Goree Island, a former slave depot, to take in the vibrations of his ancestors on the African continent – and to connect it with his experience as someone born and raised in an America still laced with racism. And he has visited Israel and Palestine and written about what he saw with deep feeling – and with a passion for justice.