[UPDATE] Tonight’s lecture was cancelled.
Pulitzer Prize winner and author of “The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration,” Isabel Wilkerson will discuss her new book at an event open to the public in Buckman Theater tonight at 7.
Wilkerson was the first black woman to win a Pulitzer Prize in journalism. She was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing as the Chicago bureau chief for The New York Times in 1994.
The Office of Academic Affairs, the Chief Diversity Officer and the School of Communications are co-sponsoring the event, where Wilkerson will discuss her newly published, award-winning book. The New York Times selected her book as one of 2010’s 10 Best Books of the Year.
“We feel her book is a remarkable achievement and a fine example of narrative journalism,” said Margarita Diaz, chairperson of the journalism department. “I hope students take away from the lecture not only a better understanding of recent American history, but an appreciation for the craft of journalism and its power to illuminate the way we live.”
Her book focuses on the six million African Americans who migrated from the South in the early 1900s. It chronicles the journeys of three migrants as they travel to different destinations.
Wilkerson’s parents were a part of the Great Migration. They then journeyed from Georgia to Washington, D.C., where she was born.
Wilkerson will sign copies of her book after the lecture.