Isabel Wilkerson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer who is currently Professor of Journalism and Director of Narrative Nonfiction at Boston University. Her first book, The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration, follows the intimate and moving stories of three African-American families who left the only place they'd ever known – the rural and small-town South – to find a better life in the urban North and West. It is the first major work to chronicle the Great Migration and its aftermath on a national scale, over the course of nearly a century.

On February 22, 2011 the Office of the Dean for Graduate Education hosted the author for a reading and book signing. Part 1: Asst. Dean Christopher Jones introduces Ms. Wilkerson, and the author offers comments on the work. Part 2: The author takes questions from the audience.