Ta-Nehisi Coates crashed a South Carolina school board meeting where they were discussing a ban of his book

• A South Carolina school board was discussing "Between the World and Me" by Ta-Nehisi Coates on Monday.
• The Black author of the book crashed the meeting, which was about whether his book should be banned.

A Black author crashed a South Carolina school board meeting in which locals railed against his award-winning book about racial justice, according to The Daily Beast.

The Lexington-Richland District 5 School Board met on Monday to discuss Ta-Nehisi Coates' autobiographical work "Between the World and Me" — a 2015 nonfiction book about being Black and experiencing racism in the US.

Coates was there to support Chapin High School educator Mary Wood, whose AP Language and Composition lesson on the book was stopped in February after the school board received complaints, DailyMail.com reported.

Coates sat next to Wood, at the back of the room, during the meeting, according to CBS 19.

In a February 2023 lesson, Wood asked her students to identify the themes of Coates' book, as well as watch two videos about systemic racism. The lesson was met with backlash from some parents and students, according to The Post and Courier.

Emails to the school board member said students were made to feel "uncomfortable" and "ashamed to be Caucasian," according to district records reviewed by The Post and Courier.

Wood was later called to a meeting with Chapin High's assistant principal and the district's director of secondary education, which resulted in the book being removed from the course, the newspaper said.

Members of the South Carolina Freedom Caucus claimed that the lesson violated state budget provisions, with South Carolina law prohibiting the use of state funds for lessons in which "an individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish or any other form of psychological distress on account of his race or sex," per The Post and Courier.

PEN America, a nonprofit that works to advance free expression, called the removal of the book "an outrageous act of government censorship."

The school board meeting on Monday heard arguments on both sides about whether Coates' book should be taught, with some people turning up wearing blue — the school's colors — in a show of support for the teacher, per DailyMail.com.

Though Coates did not speak at the meeting, others defended his book.

The chairwoman of Chapin High's English department, Tess Pratt, told the board that she had personally ordered copies of Coates' book and regretted having to take them away from students, DailyMail.com reported.

"On the day that I took Ta-Nehisi Coates' books out of the hands of Ms. Wood's students, I silenced his story," she said, according to the media outlet. "Even though this was a decision that was not mine, I will regret that moment in front of those students for the rest of my life, because it was wrong," she added.

The meeting ended without a vote being taken, according to reports.

Rebecca Blackburn Hines, the chair of the school board, did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.