The Germantown School Community Heritage Center will host an event with award-winning author Ta-Nehisi Coates on Feb. 24, at the Stephen Decatur High School auditorium.

Ta-Nehisi Coates
Photo courtesy Sean Carter Photography

By Charlene Sharpe, Associate Editor

Ties to a historic Rosenwald school will bring award-winning author Ta-Nehisi Coates later this month to Berlin.

The Germantown School Community Heritage Center will host an event with Coates, whose grandmother attended the school, on Feb. 24, at the Stephen Decatur High School auditorium. He will talk about “Between the World and Me,” a Pulitzer Prize finalist that won the National Book Award in 2015.

“His family’s roots are here,” Barbara Purnell, the president of the Germantown School Community Heritage Center said. “It’s great that he’s made it that big and it’s good for him to come and speak to the community.”

Coates is the author of the best-selling books “The Beautiful Struggle,” “We Were Eight Years in Power,” “Between the World and Me” and “The Water Dancer.”

Purnell, a cousin of Coates, has always admired his work and has wanted him to visit Germantown School, the Rosenwald school his grandmother attended as a child, for some time. She was able to get Berlin on his schedule for Black History Month but knew he would attract too much of a crowd to speak at Germantown School. She coordinated with the Berlin library to host the event there but realized as soon as the date was announced that even it would be too small. 

“As soon as we opened reservations we knew we were full,” Purnell said.

She’s grateful that she was able to work with Worcester County Public Schools to move the event to SDHS. Coates will speak at 11 a.m., Feb. 24 in the auditorium. Interested attendees can make reservations by emailing germantownschool@gmail.com or by calling 410-641-0638. 

The event is free, though donations will be accepted to the Anna V. Waters scholarship fund. Family members of Waters, Purnell’s cousin and Coates’ grandmother, started the scholarship fund in 2010 in her memory. The funds support African American students with 2.0 to 2.9 grade point averages who demonstrate a desire to pursue higher education. 

“We work each day to honor the legacy of Anna V. Waters, a tenacious woman with an unflinching work ethic,” the scholarship fund’s website reads. “Ms. Waters instilled in her children a sense of ‘doing for self’ to lead productive lives in their communities. This is the fundamental tenet in our efforts to support young African-American students. Many financial scholarships are rooted in how a student looks on paper, but grades don’t tell the whole story. We are proud to invest in students who may not have conventional markers of success and who need someone to believe in them and their potential.”