The Warmth of Other Suns : : the Epic Story of America's Great Migration

Locations
Call Number: 305.896 Wi, Black Studies 305.896 Wi, Adult Book / Nonfiction / Social Science / Race & Ethnicity / Wilkerson, Isabel
On Shelf At: Downtown Library, Pittsfield Branch, Traverwood Branch, Westgate Branch

In this epic, beautifully written masterwork, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson chronicles one of the great untold stories of American history: the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities, in search of a better life. From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America.

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Fascinating and Heartbreaking submitted by MariaK on December 29, 2010, 8:54pm Isabel Wilkerson explores the Great Migration by following three Southern emigrants who left from different cities in different years with different destinations. Through this relatively simple frame, she explores complex sociological issues surrounding race relations in the US. The horror, injustice and human suffering recounted here will break your heart, but it will, hopefully, provide greater insight into modern urban issues. If you like the work of Jonathan Kozol, or Nell Irvin Painter's "The History of White People," this book is a good choice for you.

Wonderful Book! submitted by bgood007 on May 2, 2011, 1:36pm Ida Mae Gladney, Robert Pershing Foster, and George Starling are three unforgettable people who will now never be forgotten, thanks to Isabel Wilkerson. Their stories dealing with the Jim Crow South and the less-than-receptive North and West are amazing. By switching between their stories and some summary history of the Great Migration, Wilkerson has created a very readable and moving masterpiece.

eye-opening submitted by echternk on June 15, 2013, 8:22am This book has opened my eyes to a part of US history that they don't teach in school. I think this book is highly engaging, and the history mixed with real stories makes it unforgettable. I'd highly recommend this to everyone!

Highly recommended submitted by Susan4Pax -prev. sueij- on June 26, 2014, 10:27am An utterly amazing book about one of the major social transformations in the United States throughout the 20th century: the migration of Black Americans out of the South to the North and West from 1915 through the 1970's.

The author balances three individual's stories (journeys that started in 1937, 1945, and 1953) with larger sociological perspectives gleaned from thousands of interviews, scholars, reports, census data, newspapers, and other public information. The result is a thorough and well-rounded view of the what, why, and how of a vast cultural change in this country, how it affected those who moved, those who stayed (both Black and White), and those in the places who received the travelers. All well-written, compelling, and completely absorbing right from the start.

Highly recommended.

Epic, highly readable history of Great Migration submitted by redwood on July 22, 2023, 12:20pm Wilkerson’s research results from interviews of over 1200 people in the mid-90s, archival research, and reenactment of migration journeys. She distills all of this into the intertwined biographies of three “main characters:” Ida Mae Brandon Gladney, who migrated from Mississippi to Chicago in the 1930s; George Swanson Starling, Florida to New York in the 1940s; and Robert Joseph Pershing Foster, Louisiana to Los Angeles in the 1950s. All three were born in the 1910s and together, represent three major pathways for Black migrants from the rural South to the urban North. Wilkerson writes these lives evocatively and with great respect. She depicts the horrors of the Jim Crow South to show the extreme pressures many felt to leave, yet also emphasizes the indignities and perils they faced in the North. The differences between rural and urban life are complicated, rarely clear-cut, and rural Southern culture persists in the North and West.

The narrative impulse alleviates much of the density of the material, with Wilkerson incorporating character-building details, like childhood rebellions and fancy parties, that rarely make it into capital-H History. Wilkerson recounts Dr. Foster’s solo drive from Monroe, Louisiana to Los Angeles, on which it took him hundreds of miles after the official border of the Jim Crow South to find a hotel that would accept him, in harrowing detail; it will stick with me. Also, I loved the many epigraphs throughout the book.

Wilkerson charts the joys and disappointments of three lives, from birth until death, and situates them within broader historical context and details from other interviews. She argues that in some ways, these migrants were more like immigrants (though they would take offense at that), and that the Great Migration was one of the defining events of the twentieth century, having touched so many African Americans.