Isabel Wilkerson
Isabel Wilkerson (born 1961) is an American journalist and the author of The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration (2010) and Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents (2020). She is the first woman of African-American heritage to win the Pulitzer Prize in journalism.
Isabel Wilkerson | |
|---|---|
Wilkerson at the 2010 Texas Book Festival | |
| Born | 1961 (age 62–63) Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Occupation | Journalist, author |
| Education | Howard University (BA) |
| Genre | Journalism, History |
| Notable works | The Warmth of Other Suns Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents |
| Notable awards | George S. Polk Award Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing Journalist of the Year by the National Association of Black Journalists National Book Critics Circle Award (Nonfiction) Anisfield-Wolf Book Award |
Wilkerson was the editor-in-chief of the Howard University college newspaper, interned at the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post, and became the Chicago Bureau Chief of The New York Times. She also taught at Emory, Princeton, Northwestern, and Boston University.
Wilkerson interviewed over a thousand people for The Warmth of Other Suns, which documents the stories of African Americans who migrated to northern and western cities during the 20th century. Her book Caste describes the racial hierarchy in the United States as a caste system. Both books were best-sellers.