This year’s National Book Foundation Literarian Award recipient Paul Coates has been accused of publishing “racist, antisemitic, and homophobic books and authors” in an “enthusiastic and uncritical” manner, in an article by Mark Oppenheimer in Arc Magazine. That article expands considerably on questions first raised in a piece in The Jewish Insider by Matthew Kassel, which focused on one book in particular. Additionally, Oppenheimer suggests the selection “was a surprising choice” because Coates previously served as a National Book Foundation board member.
The Literarian Award is given for “outstanding service to the literary community.” Coates, who is the father of writer Ta-Nehisi Coates, is the founder of Black Classic Press, which publishes rediscovered works by Black authors. Oppenheimer calls Coates “a surprising choice” because of his previous NBF board service, noting that the program committee which selects finalists for the award “were aware of the conflict” and that, according to board member Quang Bao, the committee had to “launder the issue of selecting someone formerly at the table.” But the piece erroneously states that Coates served on the board from 2017-2022; the National Book Foundation tells PL that the actual dates of his service are from 1997-2005.
A person at the NBF familiar with the selection process clarified that the organization has 23 board members, only two of whom had served with Coates, and neither of those two are part of the executive committee. Additionally, the person added that honoring former board members is not unprecedented, noting that former board member Carolyn Reidy received the honor in 2020.
Coates founded Black Classic Books in 1979, publishing authors ranging from W.E.B. Du Bois to Walter Mosley, but also featuring discredited anti-semitic texts like The Jewish Onslaught by Tony Martin, which reportedly overstates the role of Jews in the slave trade. Following the Jewish Insider article, that book was removed from the Black Classic Books website. Oppenheimer also highlights Black Classic Press titles like The Osiris Papers by Frances Cress Welsing, which espouses homophobic views, and books by Hunter College historian John Henrik Clarke, “who shared Welsing’s homophobia” and espoused antisemitism by Oppenheimer’s account, as did Yosef A.A. ben-Jochannan, “who like Clarke was a prolific autodidact who believed that white people had deliberately obscured the history of African greatness, and who like Clarke is well represented in the offerings of Black Classic Press.”
Coates has received several other publishing awards, including most recently the 2024 Publisher Award for Distinguished Service to the Literary Community from The Author’s Guild, along with the 2018 Dorothy Porter Wesley Award from the Association for the Study of African American Life and History; and the 2020 Lord Nose Award by the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses.
In a statement to PL, the National Book Foundation writes, “Coates has preserved the work of hundreds of Black and African diasporic authors, most notably as the publisher and founder of Black Classic Press and BCP Digital Printing. Coates’s work as a bookseller, librarian, instructor, editor, and publisher to preserve these works and make them accessible is a singular scholarly accomplishment, particularly considering that Black people in the United States had been historically targeted by anti-literacy laws, echoed in the current climate of book banning that disproportionately targets narratives by, for, and about Black people and people of color.”
They continue, “The National Book Foundation condemns antisemitism, homophobia, Islamophobia, racism, and hatred in all its forms. The National Book Foundation also supports freedom of expression and the right of any publisher to make its own determination on what it chooses to publish. Anyone examining the work of any publisher, over the course of almost five decades, will find individual works or opinions with which they disagree or find offensive. The National Book Foundation is honoring W. Paul Coates, not for the publication of any particular titles or authors, but for his tireless efforts of scholarship, to ensure that Black voices and stories, that might otherwise have been lost, are instead preserved as an irreplaceable part of American literary history.”
Asked whether there was any consideration given to the timing of this award, considering the fraught political climate, the person familiar with the process said, “Like many in publishing we understood that there were controversial books that were in the catalogue of Black Classic Press. We still felt that Coates’s unique scholarly contribution in preserving work that would otherwise have been lost to history was worthy of special recognition.”