The Great Migration, one of the most underreported stories of the 20th century, was the central topic of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Isabel Wilkerson’s talk during the UNA Writer’s Series April 14.

Wilkerson, who worked as the former Chicago bureau chief for the New York Times and is currently a journalism professor and director of narrative nonfiction at Boston University, discussed her 2010 best-selling work “The Warmth of Other Suns,” which took her 15 years and more than 1,200 interviews to complete.

The migration, which began during World War I and ended in the 1970s, was the movement of around 6 million African-Americans from the South to urban areas in the North. Seeking equality and fair treatment, millions of African-Americans left the South looking for new opportunities.

“If those people made the decision to leave all that they had known, with very little education and no promise for success, and still have had the impact that they had, then that means there is nothing we can’t do today,” Wilkerson said.

Wilkerson described the caste system that was in place during the time of the Great Migration. She said the system held a fierce grip on people living in the South with its different social hierarchies and rules regarding race relations.

To escape the discrimination and strict regulations on race, African-Americans fled their homelands by taking freedom trains with hopes for a better future for themselves and their families.

“For the first time, the lowest caste system in this country had options and they took them,” Wilkerson said. “The migration helped to expose people to alternative ways of being treated. It inspired people and provided a safety valve to the ones who stayed home that there was a place where they could go.”

Wilkerson’s parents met as a result of the migration after her mother moved from Rome, Ga. to Washington, D.C. during World War II and her father came several years later from Petersburg, Va.

During the last 15 years, Wilkerson appeared at senior centers, quilting clubs, AARP meetings, churches and other areas across the U.S. where senior citizens might frequent as she searched for black Americans who had taken part in the Great Migration.

“The Warmth of Other Suns” focuses on three protagonists with first-hand experience with the Great Migration and how it ultimately affected their lives. Each protagonist has a particular voice and personality that provides a unique perspective and stands apart from the others.

“This migration helped to bring together and bring change to the South in ways that are often not recognized,” Wilkerson said. “The Civil Rights Movement was sped along by the deflection of workers who threatened the entire economy of the South.”