The non-fiction book, published in 2015, is a letter that Coates wrote to his son. Inspired by a 2013 encounter with then-President Barack Obama , Between the World and Me is Coates' passionate attempt to provide the racist lay of the land through the unique perspective of a Black man to a child who may not yet fully understand the spoken and unspoken rules of being Black in America. White supremacy, Coates reminds his son throughout the work, is an evil that is impossible to shake.