OXFORD, Miss. – Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Isabel Wilkerson plans to discuss the 20th century migration of African-Americans from the South during a March 4 appearance at the University of Mississippi.
The lecture, set for 5 p.m. in the Overby Center Auditorium, is free and open to the public. Much of the material from Wilkerson’s lecture is from her upcoming book, “The Warmth of Other Suns: A Story of Americans and the Great Migration,” scheduled to be published in September by Random House. Wilkerson, professor of journalism and director of narrative nonfiction at Boston University, incorporates history, anthropology and ethnography in her storytelling. She spent more than a decade working on “The Warmth of Other Suns,” interviewing more than 1,500 people. She narrowed her focus to several key protagonists and retraced their journeys out of the South, conducting research on their lives and the lives of others like them in six states, including Mississippi.
She won the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing in 1994 as a reporter for The New York Times. She was the first African-American woman to win a journalism Pulitzer, and the first African-American journalist to win a Pulitzer for individual reporting.
The event is sponsored by the UM Meek School of Journalism and New Media and the Student Media Center.
For more information or for assistance related to a disability, contact Patricia Thompson at 662-915-5504 or pthomps1@olemiss.edu.