It’s More Than Racism: Isabel Wilkerson Explains America’s ‘Caste’ System

In her new book, Caste, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Isabel Wilkerson examines the laws and practices that created what she describes as a bipolar, Black and white caste system in the United States. Above, a sign in Jackson, Miss., in May 1961.

In Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist examines the laws and practices that created a bipolar caste system in the U.S. — and how the Nazis borrowed from it.

(Image credit: William Lovelace/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

In Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist examines the laws and practices that created a bipolar caste system in the U.S. — and how the Nazis borrowed from it.