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

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

by Isabel Wilkerson (Goodreads Author)

4.3 of 5 stars 4.30 · rating details · 10,682 ratings · 2,025 reviews

One of The New York Times Book Review’s 10 Best Books of the Year

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 exod...more One of The New York Times Book Review’s 10 Best Books of the Year

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. Wilkerson compares this epic migration to the migrations of other peoples in history. She interviewed more than a thousand people, and gained access to new data and official records, to write this definitive and vividly dramatic account of how these American journeys unfolded, altering our cities, our country, and ourselves.

With stunning historical detail, Wilkerson tells this story through the lives of three unique individuals: Ida Mae Gladney, who in 1937 left sharecropping and prejudice in Mississippi for Chicago, where she achieved quiet blue-collar success and, in old age, voted for Barack Obama when he ran for an Illinois Senate seat; sharp and quick-tempered George Starling, who in 1945 fled Florida for Harlem, where he endangered his job fighting for civil rights, saw his family fall, and finally found peace in God; and Robert Foster, who left Louisiana in 1953 to pursue a medical career, the personal physician to Ray Charles as part of a glitteringly successful medical career, which allowed him to purchase a grand home where he often threw exuberant parties.

Wilkerson brilliantly captures their first treacherous and exhausting cross-country trips by car and train and their new lives in colonies that grew into ghettos, as well as how they changed these cities with southern food, faith, and culture and improved them with discipline, drive, and hard work. Both a riveting microcosm and a major assessment, The Warmth of Other Suns is a bold, remarkable, and riveting work, a superb account of an “unrecognized immigration” within our own land. Through the breadth of its narrative, the beauty of the writing, the depth of its research, and the fullness of the people and lives portrayed herein, this book is destined to become a classic.

From the Hardcover edition.(less)

ebook, 622 pages

Published September 7th 2010 by Vintage (first published September 2nd 2010)

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Sep 15, 2011 Sue rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: readers of American history

Shelves: amer-civil-rights, history, race, african-american, read-in-2011, library-book, favorites

Excellent history of the movement of American blacks out of the southern states and into the north and west of the U.S. to escape the impact of the continuing Jim Crow laws on every facet of their lives. Wilkerson has found three exemplars of this internal migration who individually moved to New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, three of the popular points due to railway lines and highways. Using these three individuals we learn some of the reasons black citizens without rights decided to make thi...more

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Nov 10, 2010 Mary rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I loved this book on several levels--though with one caveat. First and foremost, by narrating the lives of three very different participants in the Great Migration, Wilkerson fleshes out an important historical story that most of us know only in general outline, if that. The details of routine racial discrimination that these individuals faced both before and after coming to the North are horrifyingly vivid and impossible to ignore. Wilkerson's research is thorough and deep, and her (somewhat co...more

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Feb 25, 2011 JJ rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Anyone, espescially those who like history.

Shelves: faves, eye-opener, historic, tear-jerker, african-american

Thinking back, I tried to recall some of the migrations that took place within America that I had learned about:

- The Gold Rush
- The Dustbowl Migration

Somewhere along the lines, my teachers forgot to mention the approximately six million people that left the Jim Crow South during 1915-1975, in search of a “kinder mistress”, and that they summoned up the courage, and risked their lives to drive cross-country, illegally hop trains, and save for months to secure a train ticket headed to Los Angeles...more Thinking back, I tried to recall some of the migrations that took place within America that I had learned about:

- The Gold Rush
- The Dustbowl Migration

Somewhere along the lines, my teachers forgot to mention the approximately six million people that left the Jim Crow South during 1915-1975, in search of a “kinder mistress”, and that they summoned up the courage, and risked their lives to drive cross-country, illegally hop trains, and save for months to secure a train ticket headed to Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, Philadelphia, etc. This migration was similar to that of anyone crossing the Atlantic or the Rio Grande, except that these migrants were already citizens of this country, but just like other migrants, they were escaping the hardships of [one part of] their own country. This daunting journey could be clear across the continent, and to a world that was completely foreign to them. Many of these Americans never looked back. Some blending into the crowds to never be heard from again, and some even changing their names to forever cut any ties to the South.

Wilkerson herself was a product of this migration, as her parents left the South early on. She had recognized the fact that this generation of Southerners was dwindling and that her time to gather information was limited. She spent fifteen years of her life devoted to this book, and spent countless hours researching and interviewing approximately 1200 people, to tell a story she thought everyone should know. Rightfully so, as this migration went on to shape America’s urban cities, their culture, the geography of neighborhoods, and the beginnings of suburbanization and housing projects.

In the beginning, I found it really difficult to read. She detailed the brutality of the south, the injustices, lynchings, the degradation and despair. I couldn’t fathom growing up in the South during this time, being treated inhumanely and the hopelessness of ever rising above it.

Wilkerson tells the stories of three migrants, Ida Mae Gladney, who left Mississippi for Chicago, George Starling who left Florida for New York, and finally Robert Pershing Foster who left Louisiana for Los Angeles. Their stories are different and unique, yet they intertwine, and are interspersed with detailed facts about the migration and other stories of the South. But in telling the stories of Ida, George and Robert, she personalized and humanized it. You cried with them, you hoped for them, and you rooted for them. In the end, I couldn’t put it down. I had to read more, hoping they would “make it”. How amazing it must have been to have sat with them and heard firsthand this bit of history.

It is part journalism (she is a Pulitzer prize winning journalist), part storytelling. It’s epic, it’s heartbreaking, inspirational and educational. I have learned so much from this book. It is one of the best pieces of non-fiction I have ever read. I was intrigued and moved by it, and will carry their stories with me for many years to come.

In one of my favorite quotes of this book, Robert said, “How could it be that people were fighting to the death over something that was, in the end, so very ordinary”. Yes, something as ordinary as being free to go and do as you please, and to do something as “ordinary’ as sitting in a diner with everyone else and eating a meal just as he had.
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Aug 07, 2011 Chrissie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: bio, history, race, usa, kindle, sample-g, not-finished

NO SPOILERS!!!

Through page 72: I am finding this book both intellectually interesting and emotionally gripping. That is exactly what I have been looking for. The book focuses on the life of thre blacks: Ida Mae who emigrated from Mississippi to Chicago in 1937, George who fled from Florida to NY in 1945 and finally Robert Pershing who left in 1953 seeking to establish himself in California. The book follow these three individual and others for 100 years, during two world wars, the Depression and...more NO SPOILERS!!!

Through page 72: I am finding this book both intellectually interesting and emotionally gripping. That is exactly what I have been looking for. The book focuses on the life of thre blacks: Ida Mae who emigrated from Mississippi to Chicago in 1937, George who fled from Florida to NY in 1945 and finally Robert Pershing who left in 1953 seeking to establish himself in California. The book follow these three individual and others for 100 years, during two world wars, the Depression and the events that will lead to the crumbling of the JIm Crow laws and the southern caste system. I want to be emotionally moved; only in this way can I come to understand their experiences. Along the way I want to learn how America has been impacted by black history. I am not disappointed so far,

But wait...... this is what I think after reading more and more and more.

I did not finish this book, quite simply because what I want right now in a book is to sink into another world. This is what I am looking for right now; this didn't fill the bill. I read more than half, so I feel I can tell you what I observed to help you decide if you want to read it. Although the book focuses on three main people, as stated above, there are so many other stories and details and examples of all the injustices experienced by the blacks in the US beginning at the turn of the 19th century that I became distracted and could not focus on the three individuals.

I know this sounds bizarre, but it was too comprehensive. Someone is sure to protest and say that all these facts, all these injustices must be stated so the reader understands how it really was for the blacks living under the Jim Crow laws. Of course such a protest has some truth, but you can overdo anything. All the injustices listed one after the other were just hard to swallow, and I found them distracting. These historical section were thrown in between the sections on the lives of Ida, George and Robert. In addition, I found myself less interested in Robert than in the other two. So there goes one third of my interest out the window. I feel the book should have focused more on the three individuals and skipped some of the other historical details.

I am not saying I disliked this book. I am not saying it isn't terribly interesting, but it really didn't draw me in. That was the kind of book I was searching for. Some of the events told are horrible, and thus moving, but the historical sections are comprised of facts and histories and events piled on top of each other. In these sections the reader is not shown, but told and told and told. You will learn a lot from the book, but it is still predominantly a "history book". Other history books have pulled me in more. A superb history book I cannot put down. Before you pick up this book be sure you are in the mood for a long, detailed, in-depth recounting of black people's history.

Maybe this book does deserve four stars, but it didn't fit what I really thoght I would get, so I gave it three.(less)

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May 18, 2011 Sherie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This was an enjoyable experience from beginning to end. The author chronicles the lives of many who fled the south and focuses on three incredible individuals. It is a testament to all who wanted a better life for themselves and for their family. It is a story we need to hear again and again until we put aside our differences and embrace our fellow man.
I can't think of anyone to whom I would not recommend this book.

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Feb 24, 2013 Leilah rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Unbelievably good and full of facts you should know but probably don't. Truly, truly remarkable read.

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Nov 04, 2011 Meghan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction, favorites

Enthralling work of narrative nonfiction about a vitally important part of American history. I want this to be made into a show on HBO.

This book tells the story of the migration of African Americans from the South, starting in 1915 and continuing into the 1950s and even until the 1970s. Millions of black people left the South and settled in the North and West of the United States, mostly in urban areas. In many ways they were similar to immigrants fleeing oppression from another land. "They were...more Enthralling work of narrative nonfiction about a vitally important part of American history. I want this to be made into a show on HBO.

This book tells the story of the migration of African Americans from the South, starting in 1915 and continuing into the 1950s and even until the 1970s. Millions of black people left the South and settled in the North and West of the United States, mostly in urban areas. In many ways they were similar to immigrants fleeing oppression from another land. "They were already citizens. But where they came from, they were not treated as such. Their every step was controlled by the meticulous laws of Jim Crow...the violently enforced codes of the southern caste system." (p. 10). This book argues that it wasn't the wartime economy or the invention of mechanized ways of cotton harvesting that drove migration from the South, but, rather, as soon as people were able to contemplate having enough freedom to leave an oppressive system, many of them left. Just walked away from their extended families and the only homes they'd ever known, and started over in a jarringly different climate, with almost no money or resources. Because they could at least have a chance at freedom, instead of living in a culture where an average of every three days, a black person was murdered by white people and there was no civil or legal recourse. And, also, black people had worse schools and every other sort of facility even though they paid the same taxes. And they might go to jail for "crimes" like not working in the fields on a Saturday.

This migration created, in effect, a leaderless civil rights movement, a walking away from an overwhelmingly wicked caste system. It made me contemplate the power of desertion, of saying no through just physically leaving a situation. It's definitely a form of empowerment. Wilkerson writes about the reaction of the ruling class when confronted with a dwindling workforce - from attempts to make it illegal to leave to letters to the editors of local papers admitting that perhaps people were leaving because if they stayed, they might be mistakenly lynched.

The heart of this book is Wilkerson's detailed and engrossing accounts of the lives of three people who left: Ida Mae, George, and Robert. They come from different parts of the South and leave under different
circumstances, and end up with vastly different lives. Wilkerson is interviewing them near the ends of their lives, which adds a dimension of sadness as they grow increasingly frail and sick. George, for instance, left Florida barely ahead of a white mob after attempting to organize fruit pickers to get better pay. He works as a porter on a train for much of his life and never finishes college. “Here was someone who had been born too early and in the wrong place to reach his true potential, had left to make a better way for himself, but had seemed to carry the sorrows of the South with him, without complaint.” (p. 513.)

It’s incredible how much injustice has been done in such recent history. In between these individual stories, Wilkerson talks about the overall trends of the migration and how people from certain states wound up migrating to the same cities, because of the way the rail lines worked and because those cities wound up creating their own communities of Southern expatriates. She also traces the problems of Northern racism and how that created the urban blight that goes on to this day – for instance, when people aren’t allowed to live in most areas of a city, conditions deteriorate because of crowding and exploitative landlords. And then when people aren’t allowed to work at most jobs, they have to turn to alternate ways of making money.

This reminds me of both Nothing to Envy and Random Family, two other sweeping and personal books of historical narrative.

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Dec 29, 2011 Dennis Henn rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Excellent anecdotal account of the migration of blacks out from the South between the years 1915-1970. The extent of Jim Crow laws, with the lynchings and segregation, which impacted every aspect of life continues to shock me. How we justify treating another race as less than animals seems so devoid of humanity that I wouldn't believe it true except the tendency is so well chronicled. So I try to pretend anti-semitism was peculiar to Russia or Germany but that I wouldn't practice it. I try to pr...more

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Oct 07, 2011 Jo rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: immigrant-experience

I wish I had it in my power to make this book required reading for everyone, at least all students. When we cringe at the horrors waged against others in the world today, we need to remember our own not so distant history and take the lead in driving change.

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May 24, 2012 Nancy rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: book-club-selection

I would recommend this as required reading for all high school students as well as adult history buffs and anyone, like me, who appreciates a personalized, yet no less analytical account of an important historical event presented in a lively, readable manner. Wilkerson presents the story of the Great Migration of Blacks from the South to the North and West of the United States that took place from the 1930s though the 1970s and changed the face of this country. The author intersperses historical...more

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Oct 30, 2011 ☯Emily rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history

This is the story of the migration of blacks from the South to the North and West of the United States. For over 60 years, from World War I to the early 1970's, a steady stream of people left the Jim Crow South to seek freedom in the northern and western cities. The author has traced the story of three different people who left the South during three different decades and going to three different cities. Their stories represent the millions of blacks who left. Were their lives better in the Nort...more

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Sep 02, 2012 Jill Nolan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is an excellent read. Isabel Wilkerson is a Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist and Professor of Journalism at Boston University. It's no surprise that her research is impeccable. However, only a truly gifted writer can take that research and weave it into stories so riveting that the people she interviewed come alive. The book tells the stories of three people from different places and times who were part of the great migration of Southern blacks to Northern cities from approximately 1930-19...more

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Sep 26, 2012 Daniel added it · review of another edition

This is a contemporary masterpiece. Wilkerson writes with compassion, scholarly rigor, and a historian's curiosity that leads us to countless insights not only into an often neglected period of twentieth century history, but into the human condition. Her primary goal as a historian is to expose the Great Migration for what it most obviously is, a mass immigration of millions of people fleeing an untenable social and economic situation in Jim Crow segregation. As a journalist and author, however,...more

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Jan 10, 2012 Ruth rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: History buffs/ non-fiction

At first, a precious few then a swell of Black Americans, finally numbering over 10 million people, began a journey that spread all over America and the Great Migration had begun. They were searching for the freedom promised them but never to be realized in the south. The great Emancipation of the black race would not be tolerated by the slave owners and land barons of the southern states. Their cruel treatment continued unabated,divisions of families, beatings, hangings, long hard days of manua...more

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Apr 02, 2012 Suzanne rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: black-history, book-club-2012, non-fiction

“When the time had come, Ida Mae and little James and Velma and all that they could carry were loaded into a brother-in-law’s truck, and the three of them went to meet Ida Mae’s husband at the train depot in Okolona for the night ride out of the bottomland.”

Just last year, I was helping my middle schooler study for his social studies test. One of the questions was about The Great Migration. Quite frankly, I had never heard that term before. There was no question that black Americans left the S...more

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Dec 17, 2011 Julie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Julie by: Jessica

Shelves: history-non-fiction, social-political-commentary, read-2011, usa-contemporary, best-of-2011, usa-historical

The Warmth of Other Suns is a transformative book, one that can profoundly change and shape the way we view American history. The list of awards and accolades is so long the book does not need my imprimateur, but I will echo each and every one by saying, "Read this."

From 1915 to 1970, thousands of black Americans undertook a pilgrimage of hope and determination that led them from cotton fields, rice and tobacco plantations, from villages and towns in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky...more The Warmth of Other Suns is a transformative book, one that can profoundly change and shape the way we view American history. The list of awards and accolades is so long the book does not need my imprimateur, but I will echo each and every one by saying, "Read this."

From 1915 to 1970, thousands of black Americans undertook a pilgrimage of hope and determination that led them from cotton fields, rice and tobacco plantations, from villages and towns in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia to a new world in the north. They followed the trails and tracks of the Underground Railroad laid down by generations of escaped slaves and abolitionists before them, settling primarily in Chicago, Milwaukee, Gary, IN, New York, Newark and Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Oakland. It was, as the author states, "...the first mass act of independence by a people who were in bondage in the country far longer than they have been free." (p. 10) It was an act of individuals and families - breaking free of the cruel grip of Jim Crow - that grew into an extended social revolution. It was perhaps the most significant event of 20th century America and few of us know anything about it.

That Isabel Wilkerson is an award-winning journalist is evident in her intense, encompassing and rigorous research. She conducted over twelve hundred interviews and spent several years examining primary source documents, scholarly and literary works that witness, analyze and recount the beginnings of Jim Crow South in the 1880's, through the end of the Great Migration in the 1970's.

But Ms. Wilkerson is also a consummate story-teller. The Warmth of Other Sons is one of the finest pieces of narrative non-fiction I have read. She takes the very difficult subject of Jim Crow - one that is so horrifying it is hard to absorb and accept- and humanizes it by telling the stories of three participants in the Great Migration. We ride a train north in the late 1930's from Mississippi to Milwaukee with pregnant Ida Mae Gladney, her husband and two small children, who abandon their lives as cotton sharecroppers and eventually make a home in Chicago's South Side. We escape from Florida's citrus groves to Harlem in 1945 with George Swanson Starling, who risks lynching by organizing his fellow fruit pickers to strike for higher wages. We travel the long highway miles between Monroe, Louisiana to Los Angeles, California with Dr. Robert Joseph Pershing Foster in 1953 and imagine a life of respect and glamour that surely awaits an educated, handsome, well-spoken black man- in diverse, liberal Southern California.

Wilkerson weaves these narratives along parallel lines, taking us through each stage of the migrants' journeys concurrently, pausing to describe the social and political conditions that existed in the region or the era. Rarely have I read a non-fiction work that provides so complete a foundation and builds a structure without overwhelming the narrative in detail.

The author tells these migrants' stories with grace and empathy, but does not sentimentalize or over-dramatize history. She presents the ugliness and horror of Jim Crow and the racism that existed in the North - where discrimination could not be identified by a set of written rules and laws, but was as prevalent and cruel as in the South - without making caricatures of its heroes and villains, as too often happens in literary works.

One of the vital outcomes of studying history is compassion developed through greater understanding and knowledge. Although the Great Migration nominally ended in the 1970's, after the Civil Rights Movement of the previous decade tore away the Jim Crow curtain from the South, it is a story without end. We are a nation of immigrants, celebrating the American promise of life, liberty, and happiness, yet we remain divided by class, color, economics, education, and vision. We are largely integrated, but not always comfortably. Isabel Wilkerson offers a transcendent work that is epic in scope but relayed in the most personal, relevant way. It is the quintessential American story - perseverance and hope in the face of injustice and hate. With works as fine as Isabel Wilkerson's, it is my hope that history can light a way to a better future for all. (less)

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Mar 29, 2012 Melody rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobook, non-fiction

I remember that even we, with as little money as we had, had three members of a local black family working for us down in Alabama on Chickadale Farm. John helped daddy with the chickens, Essie came and cleaned on Saturdays (when her "sugar" wasn't bothering her). And when she was down with her sugar, she sent Juliet. I was enchanted with Juliet. I don't remember specifically why I was enamored with her - I think it was that she was so young and these three were the only black people I knew (othe...more I remember that even we, with as little money as we had, had three members of a local black family working for us down in Alabama on Chickadale Farm. John helped daddy with the chickens, Essie came and cleaned on Saturdays (when her "sugar" wasn't bothering her). And when she was down with her sugar, she sent Juliet. I was enchanted with Juliet. I don't remember specifically why I was enamored with her - I think it was that she was so young and these three were the only black people I knew (other than Vera who would prick your finger if you went to see Dr. Hubbard). Then suddenly, Juliet was gone. Mother said she had moved to Detroit. I wanted to know why. She said that is just what young Negros do. "The South has nothing for a young colored girl" my mother told me. Detroit, Chicago, New York - they move there so they can make more money and be treated better than they are treated in the south.

I have thought so much about that. Wondered about Juliet. Hoped she found something better than ironing our napkins and shirts and washing our dishes. This book is about that massive migration from the South to the hope of something better.

The author uses 3 of the many people she interviewed for this book to make the point that black southerners were really just like the many immigrants to the major Northern cities who came from Italy, Ireland and Greece after WW I. The migration stretches over many years - from the 30s to the 60s. Blacks fled the south hoping to escape the "white's only" Jim Crow laws and mentality facing them in Alabama, Florida, Mississippi and the rest of the South - only to find that things were still tough and not all they thought it would be.

The reason I couldn't rate the book higher was because at times it felt that the author was being paid by the number of pages. She repeated things that she had already said over and over. But the story was still important and the research seemed thourough and accurate. Glad I read it. But I have to admit, I read (or listened to since this was the audio book) with anticipation that she might mention Juliet from Alabama so I could finally know what happened to her, and it didn't happen.(less)

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Mar 09, 2013 Trisha rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Here’s a book I wish I could encourage every reader I know to add to their list – not only because it’s a good read, but more importantly because we all need to be more aware of what it has to teach us. It’s a meticulously researched and superbly written narrative about the great migration of some six million black Americans who left the South during the years between WWI and the 1970’s. The author is a descendent of parents whose stories are similar to so many others who made the often perilous...more Here’s a book I wish I could encourage every reader I know to add to their list – not only because it’s a good read, but more importantly because we all need to be more aware of what it has to teach us. It’s a meticulously researched and superbly written narrative about the great migration of some six million black Americans who left the South during the years between WWI and the 1970’s. The author is a descendent of parents whose stories are similar to so many others who made the often perilous and life threatening journey north to escape unspeakable conditions in the Jim Crow Southern states in order to provide a better life for their children and grandchildren. After interviewing more than 1200 elderly black men and women from a variety of different backgrounds all across the country, Wilkerson selected one person for each of the three major streams of migration: the wife of a sharecropper from Mississippi who leaves with her husband for Chicago after a young relative is nearly beaten to death for something he didn’t do; a man who in his younger days had hoped to go to college but was forced instead to work long hours in Florida’s citrus groves where he barely escaped being lynched before sneaking on to a train that took him up the eastern coast to New York; and a surgeon who left Louisiana to journey through the West in pursuit of his dream of living the good life amid high society in black Los Angeles. Interspersed among their vividly detailed narratives is a wealth of information gleaned from newspaper accounts, sociological studies and a historical documents that provide additional information about the conditions that forced people to leave the South, and the challenges that awaited them upon arrival in the North. I listened to the audio version of the book, superbly narrated by Robin Miles, who captured the cadence and dialects of rural Southern blacks in a way that brought them to life and gave an oral-history feel to their stories. This is a book to be read for what it has to reveal about the shameful reality of racism and how it has affected our country, as well as the amazing courage countless Black people have demonstrated in their attempts to escape it. Despite the progress that has been made in the years since the Civil Rights Act put Jim Crow to death, one can only wonder if we will ever be free of the terrible blight of rascism that is, sadly, still part of the fabric of this country.(less)

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Apr 30, 2013 Leslie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction-history

Hard to be succinct when reviewing a book of this magnitude, but I understand why the author won the Pulitzer Prize in journalism (not for this book). American history, period. I knew much of it, but it was still helpful to see it condensed and put into perspective. Made me even more thankful that my grandmother insisted that she and my grandfather leave Texas, though the rest of the family stayed there and prospered. The absurdity of Jim Crow is covered in full, but the most nagging detail to m...more

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May 11, 2013 Ben rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recently, I finally got around to reading Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man. I could appreciate the frustration and bitterness that the main character felt, but I found it difficult to relate to him, stay engaged, or get a sense of what it really was like for African-Americans living as outcasts in 1950's America. The protagonist had no depth as a character because Mr. Ellison used him merely as a sounding board for the plight of his people.

The Warmth of Other Suns, for me, accomplished what Invisi...more

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Jan 14, 2012 Jennyreadsexcessively rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Yay, meets my goal of reading one nonfiction a month this year. And what a strong story this is. Wilkerson tells of the Great Migration of African-Americans northward and westward to flee the Jim Crow South from the years 1915-1970. The history is so compelling but what Wilkerson does wonderfully is highlight the stories of 3 individuals: Ida Mae who leaves sharecropping in Mississippi in the 30's to live in Chicago, George who escapes lynching from the citrus groves of Florida and boards a trai...more

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Oct 11, 2010 Bookmarks Magazine rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: nov-dec-2010

In The Warmth of Other Suns Wilkerson has composed a masterpiece of narrative journalism on a subject vital to our national identity, as compelling as it is heartbreaking and hopeful. Critics, however, were less certain about whether Wilkerson has written a definitive history of the Great Migration. Several reviewers saw the book as an important corrective to previous scholarship on the Migration that too often grouped African Americans into a voiceless mass, that focused exclusively on the nega...more

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May 04, 2013 Frederick Bingham rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is an amazing description of the great migration, the massive movement of american blacks from the rural south to the urban north and west between 1915 and 1970. During this time about 6 million people made the journey. The author accomplishes this by following three typical people, a doctor who migrated from Louisiana to Los Angeles, a fruit picker who moved from Florida to New York and a sharecropper who went from Mississippi to Chicago.

The author skillfully weaves together the personal s...more

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May 04, 2013 Maureen rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

What a great book, in every sense of the word. She's looking at the rarely examined but massive phenomenon of Black migration out of the South in the twentieth century. She follows three people, from three different decades of migration to three distinct destinations. But she captures their experience so well. Despite their differences in education and destination, they had all experienced the humiliation, shame, and serious danger of Jim Crow. It makes me so ashamed of my adopted country that s...more

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Apr 26, 2013 Losososdiane rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a wonderful study that teases out and analyzes the meaning of one of the most important happenings in American history. The author gives us both an overall view of this great migration and the intimate details of its effect upon the lives of three migrants. She carefully documents the important fact that the cities of the North and West had a very negative impact upon the migrants and made life very hard for them. Their migration was just the same as that of those who came to the U.S. fr...more

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Apr 21, 2013 Bank rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

At the start of its 672 page report, on the 1919 Chicago riots, the sober white led Chicago commission on race relations, presaging sentiments of a yet to be born African-American president, whose rise would have been beyond imagination, admonished in 1922;
"It is important for our white citizens always to remember that the Negroes alone of all immigrants came to America against their will by the special compelling invitation of the whites and the institution of slavery was introduced , expanded...more At the start of its 672 page report, on the 1919 Chicago riots, the sober white led Chicago commission on race relations, presaging sentiments of a yet to be born African-American president, whose rise would have been beyond imagination, admonished in 1922;
"It is important for our white citizens always to remember that the Negroes alone of all immigrants came to America against their will by the special compelling invitation of the whites and the institution of slavery was introduced , expanded and maintained by the United States by the white people and for their own benefits and they likewise created the conditions following emancipation.
Our Negro problem, therefore, is not of the Negroes making. No group in our population is less responsible for its existence but every group is responsible for his continuance both races need to understand their rights and duties are mutually equal interest in the coming identical. There is no help or healing in appraising past responsibilities or in present apportioning of praise or blame . "

This excerpt from the the book written in 1919 when the Northern cities had their first race riots may be the best summary I have ever read of the challenges faced by African Americans in their quest to assimilate into America . Between 1915 and 1979 nearly 6mm negroes left the south seeking freedom and a better life . The percentage of blacks living in the south feel from 32% to 19% over this period . Ironically , blacks moving to the north and west had strong nuclear families and work ethics and no exposure to drugs ; living in the crowded conditions of Chicago , Detroit , Philadelphia , new York , etc, caused a rapid deterioration in the family , and social mores .
Ms Wilkerson has written a superb history book , which rings true . And provides a clear cogent history of the black American experience through 1970 .
The burning question , for which she lays a beautiful foundation is still very much as it was in 1919 in Chicago . Our country's handling of the unique challenges of its black population has been politically self serving , short sighted , and shameful . While blacks and whites have to accept their part in the resulting collapse of black families , sky high black on black murders , drug use , incarceration rates , the failed educational system , i think the US and State governments , whether controlled by black or whites should be ashamed . Governments post civil rights have exacerbated the problem , largely for political ends and through short sighted social programs . I would love to Ms Wilkerson write part 2 covering from 1970 to 2010 . I personally think the assimilation of our black citizens is the greatest social challenge AND opportunity our country has .(less)

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Apr 17, 2013 David Bates rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Isabella Wilkerson’s 2010 work The Warmth of Other Suns tells the story of The Great Migration by following the stories of George Starling, Robert Pershing Foster and Ida Mae Brandon Gladney. Growing up inside the South’s racial caste system, each of Wilkerson’s protagonists felt the smothering weight of a society whose primary lesson to black children as they became adults was the rights they would be cheated of, the boundaries they must observe, and the violence that policed them. In 1937 Ida...more Isabella Wilkerson’s 2010 work The Warmth of Other Suns tells the story of The Great Migration by following the stories of George Starling, Robert Pershing Foster and Ida Mae Brandon Gladney. Growing up inside the South’s racial caste system, each of Wilkerson’s protagonists felt the smothering weight of a society whose primary lesson to black children as they became adults was the rights they would be cheated of, the boundaries they must observe, and the violence that policed them. In 1937 Ida Mae, pregnant with her first child and accompanied by her sharecropper husband and family set out from a plantation in Mississippi, eventually settling in Chicago. In 1945 George Starling fled Florida by train to avoid being lynched for leading a crew of fruit pickers who demanded better wages, and landed in Harlem. An ambitious young doctor confined to house calls or second fiddle hospital duties, Robert Pershing Foster lit out for California and a wider horizon in his Buick Roadmaster in 1953, settling in Los Angeles. They were part of a great exodus from 1915 to 1975 that saw six million black southerners leave for cities in the North and West. It grew out of unmet promises made after the Civil War and, Wilkerson argues, “through the sheer weight of it,” forced the South to confront its injustices and “helped push the country toward the civil rights revolutions of the 1960s.” In vivid episodes Wilkerson’s biographies and suggestive vignettes hint at both the diversity of the people and experiences involved in leaving the South, and also the bittersweet commonalities. Having fled the South, George remained trapped in a dead end job with the passenger rail system, frustrated with the young people in his neighborhood who made nothing out of their opportunities. Ida Mae watched her South Side neighborhood suddenly empty of white people as blacks moved in, then fall into disrepair as the city’s services were withdrawn, ending her days attending weekly neighborhood watch meetings. Despite going on to professional success Robert had a rocky start, discovering that California was not without its own racial boundaries(less)

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Apr 06, 2013 Dave Roberts rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a remarkable book. It tells the story of the Jim Crow South, how blacks were treated there, why they left in huge numbers to move to cities in the North.

Then it tells the detailed stories of several individuals, researched in great detail, starting with their background under Jim Crow, why they felt they had to leave, their departure, and what they encountered in the North.

I had known the Jim Crow consisted of terrible segregation, but what I had not realized was that it was really tant...more

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Mar 15, 2013 Stephanie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

One of the best books I read last year...Wilkerson expertly and thoroughly explores a a little researched subject, the historical black migration from the South to points North and West during the 20th century until the 1960s...This is a multi layered generational story of the brave families who bucked jim Crow, pulled up their roots and left their place of familiarity to start news lives in an unknown territory...The saga is as exciting as the Westward Movements of the pioneers 70 years before...more

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Mar 08, 2013 Helen Mastico rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: emotive, non-fiction

My first and overwhelming sense from this was that I simply didn't know about the severity and expansiveness of the Jim Crow laws. In my defense I grew up in England, I came here as an adult in 1993, so US history was not covered with much detail in my schooling. I knew about the segregation because it was often compared with South Africa, the apartheid there was a huge thing when I was growing up, protests and never buying South African goods was the order of the day. So the book is a huge eye...more

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“Our Negro problem, therefore, is not of the Negro's making. No group in our population is less responsible for its existence. But every group is responsible for its continuance.... Both races need to understand that their rights and duties are mutual and equal and their interests in the common good are idential.... There is no help or healing in apparaising past responsibilities or in present apportioning of praise or blame. The past is of value only as it aids in understanding the present; and an understanding of the facts of the problem--a magnanimous understanding by both races--is the first step toward its solution.” — 6 people liked it

“They traveled deep into far-flung regions of their own country and in some cases clear across the continent. Thus the Great Migration had more in common with the vast movements of refugees from famine, war, and genocide in other parts of the world, where oppressed people, whether fleeing twenty-first-century Darfur or nineteenth-century Ireland, go great distances, journey across rivers, desserts, and oceans or as far as it takes to reach safety with the hope that life will be better wherever they land.” — 5 people liked it

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