Isabel Wilkerson is the author of the bestsellers “The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration” and “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents.” She won a Pulitzer Prize in 1994, becoming the first Black woman to earn the accolade for feature writing and individual reporting.
In 2016, former President Barack Obama awarded Wilkerson the National Humanities Medal for "championing the stories of an unsung history."
“The Warmth of Other Suns” won the National Book Critics Circle Award. More than 30 publications listed the book among its best of the year, including the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and The New York Times, which also named the book one of the 100 best books of the 21st century. In 2020, Time magazine named “Caste” nonfiction book of the year, and Oprah Winfrey chose it for her book club.
A Howard University alumna, Wilkerson has taught at Princeton, Emory, Boston and other universities across the United States, Europe and Asia. Learn more about the author’s work by visiting the Penguin Random House website.
After over 15 years of organizing by civil rights activists for the holiday to be recognized by the federal government, the first official celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day took place on 20 January 1986. Read more about the The 15 Year Battle for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day from the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture and from the King Institute at Stanford University.