Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist and Author to Speak in Memphis

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Isabel Wilkerson will speak to audiences in Memphis, Tennessee, this week. Her book, The Warmth of Other Suns, sheds light on one of the most under-reported stories in American history: the 19th century migration of some six million black Americans from the American South to the urban North and West.

“I’m a product of the very migration that I’ve written about,” Wilkerson told the Commercial Appeal. “The people that participated in it didn’t talk about it, even with their own children.” Through meticulous research and interviews, Wilkerson wrote the book over a span of 15 years and threads together the stories of three individuals who migrated from the South, one to Chicago, another to New York, and another to Los Angeles.

Read the article “‘The Great Migration’ Tales Sad, Shocking,” by Wendi C. Thomas in the Commercial Appeal.

Read an interview with Isabel Wilkerson on the Facing History website.

Learn about our work in Memphis, Tennessee.