A Conversation with Isabel Wilkerson on Caste, Community, and Injustice in America
By Staff of Nevada Humanities
“An instant American classic and almost certainly the keynote nonfiction book of the American century thus far,” Dwight Garner, The New York Times
“The Warmth of Other Suns is a brilliant and stirring epic, the first book to cover the full half-century of the Great Migration… Wilkerson combines impressive research…with great narrative and literary power. Ms. Wilkerson does for the Great Migration what John Steinbeck did for the Okies in his fiction masterpiece, The Grapes of Wrath; she humanizes history, giving it emotional and psychological depth.”
—John Stauffer, Wall Street Journal
Today Nevada Humanities, in collaboration with Core Humanities in the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Nevada, Reno, The Humanities Center at Great Basin College, and with the Department of Interdisciplinary, Gender, and Ethnic Studies at UNLV, welcomes author and historian Isabel Wilkerson to a keynote talk about race, Black migration throughout the western United States, and her new book Caste: The Origins of our Discontents, a comprehensive analysis of the United States as a hierarchical society. Isabel Wilkerson on Caste, Community, and Injustice in America will be held virtually on March 4, 2021, at 3 - 4 pm PST on Zoom. Event registration is required. Register here for today’s event.
Wilkerson’s 2010 book, The Warmth of Other Suns, addresses the 20th century migration of African American people from the southern United States to northern cities, including New York, Chicago, and Oakland. Wilkerson will expand on this topic in her talk, describing the experience of African Americans traveling through and settling in Nevada. Expanding on themes from her newest book, Caste: The Origins of our Discontents, Wilkerson will clarify an understanding of this country’s history and entrenched systems of racism.
Christina Barr, executive director of Nevada Humanities states, “At Nevada Humanities, we appreciate that understanding our current condition as a nation requires us to examine, interrogate, and learn from history. Isabel Wilkerson is one of this country’s foremost experts on the history of race in the United States, and we are thrilled to host her virtually in Nevada to share her ideas and knowledge about Black migration, systemic racism, and the hope we can cultivate by coming together to talk about these important issues.”
The Warmth of Other Suns won the National Book Critics Circle Award, among other honors, and was named to more than 30 Best of the Year lists, including The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The New Yorker, and The Washington Post. Caste: The Origins of our Discontents, was published in August 2020 to critical acclaim and became a #1 New York Times bestseller.
Image/Nevada Humanities.
Caste, Community, and Injustice in America is produced by Nevada Humanities, Core Humanities in the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Nevada, Reno, The Humanities Center at Great Basin College, and by the Department of Interdisciplinary, Gender, and Ethnic Studies at UNLV. This program is supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, and is also a part of the “Democracy and the Informed Citizen” Initiative, administered by the Federation of State Humanities Councils and supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. This program is also supported by the Nevada Center for the Book, produced by Nevada Humanities and made possible with support from Nevada State Library, Archives and Public Records, The Institute of Museum and Library Services, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
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