10. Some Contemporaries

Ta-Nehisi Coates, Bryan Stevenson and Michelle Alexander are some contemporary thinkers and activists who follow in the conceptual footsteps of DuBois and Dewey. This chapter considers each of those contemporaries and explains how each is a conceptual descendant of DuBois and Dewey. These contemporaries contribute distinctive ways of thinking about current issues of race in the American world, ways that follow the indigenous path blazed by DuBois and Dewey. The continuity in this indigenous American tradition of thought about justice is striking. Consequently, these contemporaries gain strength from realizing their continuity with those earlier—and pragmatist—traditions. This chapter concludes with comments about Coates’s reflections about reparations as he presents them in his well-known Atlantic essay.