[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 68 (Thursday, April 25, 2019)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E489]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       HONORING ISABEL WILKERSON

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. DONALD M. PAYNE, JR.

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, April 25, 2019

  Mr. PAYNE. Madam Speaker, Isabel Wilkerson is one of the most 
important documentarians of African-American history in the United 
States.
  Ms. Wilkerson devoted fifteen years to researching and writing The 
Warmth of Other Suns, one of the most important accounts of the Great 
Migration. From the 1910s to 1970s, millions of African-Americans left 
the segregated South in search of prosperity elsewhere. Drawing 
inspiration from the migration of her own parents from the rural South 
to Washington, D.C., Ms. Wilkerson set out to document stories from six 
decades of the continuous exodus of African-Americans from the South. 
By sharing the very important but underreported story of the six 
million people who were once enslaved and their descendants who fled 
the South for a better life, Ms Wilkerson has helped our nation better 
understand the dynamics of our society.
  The Warmth of Other Suns is only one of Ms. Wilkerson's great 
achievements. She has been a trailblazing author for decades. In the 
1990s, she was Chicago Bureau Chief for The New York Times. In 1994, 
she became the first African-American woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for 
journalism. Her Pulitzer-winning stories centered on the Midwestern 
flood of 1993 and the reality of life for a ten-year-old boy from the 
South Side of Chicago. Since then, she has written and taught at the 
highest levels in the United States.
  Today, at Rutgers University in Newark, Ms. Wilkerson is delivering 
the prestigious Tanner Lecture on Human Values. Her work has enhanced 
our nation's understanding of human rights and human values. I proudly 
honor Ms. Wilkerson for her achievements and continued success.

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