Mr. Wilkins served as the director of the Community Relations service. Mr. Wilkins said he frequently was received during his travels as an outsider from official, white Washington. Mr. Wilkins was not invited. Through a relationship with the MCA heiress and writer Jean Stein vanden Heuvel, Mr. Wilkins moved in a high-society circle that included Norman Mailer, Arthur Miller and Leonard Bernstein. In 1980, Mr. Wilkins and Post columnist William Raspberry became the first black members of the Pulitzer Prize board, which Mr. Wilkins later chaired.

Source: Washington Post March 27, 2017 19:20 UTC