Wilkerson interviewed more than a thousand people for The Warmth of Other Suns (2010), which documents the stories of African Americans who migrated to northern and western cities during the 20th century. Her 2020 book Caste describes the racial hierarchy in the United States as a caste system. Both books were best-sellers.
In 1994, while the Chicago Bureau Chief of The New York Times, she became the first woman of African-American heritage to win the Pulitzer Prize in journalism,[1] winning the feature writing award for her coverage of the 1993 midwestern floods and her profile of a 10-year-old boy who was responsible for his four siblings.[4] Several of Wilkerson's articles are included in the book Pulitzer Prize Feature Stories: America's Best Writing, 1979 – 2003, edited by David Garlock.
In a 2010 New York Times interview, Wilkerson described herself as being part of a movement of African Americans who have chosen to return to the South after generations in the North.[15]
Wilkerson's 2020 book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents argues that racial stratification in the United States is best understood as a caste system, akin to those in India and in Nazi Germany.[16]
A review by Dwight Garner in The New York Times described it as "an instant American classic and almost certainly the keynote nonfiction book of the American century thus far."[16]Publishers Weekly called Caste a "powerful and extraordinarily timely social history."[17] The reviewer for The Chicago Tribune wrote that the book was "among the year's best" books.[18] The book peaked at number one on The New York Timesnonfiction best-seller list.[19] On October 14, 2020, Netflix announced Ava DuVernay would write, direct, and produce a feature film adaptation of Caste.[20]
Personal life
Wilkerson has been married twice. She married Roderick Jeffrey Watts in Fort Washington, Maryland, in 1989.[21] Wilkerson married her second husband, Brett Kelly Hamilton, in 2009. Hamilton died in 2015 after being ill for some time.[22] Hamilton suffered from a rare type of brain tumor. After multiple surgeries he suffered from seizures. It is believed that a seizure is what took his life on July 19, 2015. [23]
The New American Reader: Recent Periodical Essays, edited by Gilbert H. Muller (McGraw-Hill, 1997)
"He Put a Spin on Design", in The Last Word: The New York Times Book of Obituaries and Farewells : a Celebration of Unusual Lives, edited by Marvin Siegel (William Morrow, 1997)
"Superstars of Dreamland", in Best American Movie Writing, edited by George Plimpton (St. Martin's Press, 1998)
We Americans: Celebrating a Nation, Its People and Its Past, edited by Thomas B. Allen and Charles O. Hyman (National Geographic Society, 1999)
"Two Boys, a Debt, a Gun, a Victim: The Face of Violence", in Writing the World: Reading and Writing about Issues of the Day, edited by Charles R. Cooper, Susan Peck MacDonald (Macmillan, 2000). ISBN0-312-26008-3
Written into History: Pulitzer Prize Reporting of the Twentieth Century, edited by Anthony Lewis (Times Books, Henry Holt and Company, 2001)
"First Born, Fast Grown: The Manful Life of Nicholas, 10", in Feature Writing for Newspapers and Magazines: The Pursuit of Excellence, edited by Edward Jay Friedlander and John Lee (HarperCollins College Publishers, 1997); and The Princeton Anthology of Writing, edited by John McPhee and Carol Rigolot (Princeton University Press, 2001)
Various articles, Pulitzer Prize Feature Stories: America's Best Writing, 1979 – 2003, edited by David Garlock (Iowa State University Press, 1998; Wiley-Blackwell; 2nd edition, April 18, 2003)
"Interviewing Sources", Spring 2002 Nieman Narrative Journalism Conference Report
"Angela Whitiker's Climb", in Class Matters, by correspondents of The New York Times (Times Books, 2005)
"Interviewing: Accelerated Intimacy", in Telling True Stories: A Nonfiction Writers' Guide from the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University, edited by Mark Kramer and Wendy Call (Plume Penguin Books, January 30, 2007)
^Wilkerson, Isabel (July 1, 2020). "America's Enduring Caste System". NYT Magazine. Retrieved July 15, 2020. As we go about our daily lives, caste is the wordless usher in a darkened theater, flashlight cast down in the aisles, guiding us to our assigned seats for a performance. The hierarchy of caste is not about feelings or morality. It is about power — which groups have it and which do not.
^"Isabel Wilkerson of The New York Times". pulitzer.org. 1994. Retrieved July 15, 2020. For her profile of a fourth-grader from Chicago's South Side and for two stories reporting on the Midwestern flood of 1993.
