In 2016, The Atlantic’s Ta-Nehisi Coates spent many hours over several

months speaking one-on-one with Barack Obama about what it meant

to govern as the first African American president of the United States.

The result—Coates’s cover story for The Atlantic’s January/February

2017 issue, “My President Was Black”—prompted an intense national

and global conversation about race and politics in America.

This collection includes Coates’s story along with his behind-the-

scenes interviews and a number of response essays. Together, they

represent an early draft of a complex history that will be explored and

debated for decades to come.