We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy

We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy is a collection of essays by Ta-Nehisi Coates, a regular contributor to The Atlantic and a commentator on matters of race, Black identity, and White supremacy. Published in 2017, the collection focuses on what accounts for America’s inability to escape its White supremacist past, the impact of the Obama presidency on American culture and the writer, and the enduring impact of slavery on the country; the collection ends with a meditation on the significance of the election of Donald Trump. This guide is based on the 2017 One World/Random House print edition.

The book comprises an Introduction, eight essays with introductory notes, and an Epilogue that Coates wrote after the election of Donald Trump in 2016. In the Introduction, “Regarding Good Negro Government,” Coates argues that the first era of good Black government was during the Reconstruction period rather than during the Obama presidency. White supremacists misrepresent these eras as ones rife with corruption and incompetence because good Black government undercuts White supremacist notions of inherent Black inferiority.

In Chapter 1, which comprises “Notes on the First Year” and “This Is How We Lost to the White Man,” Coates reflects on how poorly his career and personal life were going until

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