The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson
A Review By: SY
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.
Review Notes:
Audio Book Publication Year: 2010
An installment in a Series? No
Narrator (s): Robin Miles
Wilkerson 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 cities, the country, and Americans themselves.
Isabel Wilkerson was the first African-American winner of a Pulitzer Prize in journalism and “Warmth” is hailed by the literary community as a modern classic. After listening to her detailed account of the period in history that defines the multi-generational experience of so many African Americans, I understand her Pulitzer status and would have to agree that “Warmth” is an essential body of work.
This book could have been written from a purely academic and mathematical perspective. There was an unapologetic wealth of statistics and historical references that were used to paint the picture of the Jim Crow South and how its politics and oppression drove millions of Black people to settle in northern and western places. However, Wilkerson brilliantly chose to weave throughout the bevy of facts three vignettes of real people and their journeys leading up to and during the Great Migration - creating an emotional connection between the listener and the recent past. The balance that Wilkerson struck using the perspectives of people who settled in other places was important; she was sure to reinforce that while conditions in the new locations were in some ways better, they were still experiencing real racial and economic challenges even after they’d left the South.
Robin Miles narrated in stellar form, with her pacing and delivery being what one would expect from a narration veteran like herself. Clocking in at just under 23 hours, the consistency of her storytelling was remarkable. The lovely surprise was that Miles managed to inject a familiarity into the voices of the people whose stories are being told - like you are listening to a relative at a family gathering. There was an empathetic and authentic quality that her voice embodied when recounting their personal experiences but also a serious and sobered tone when sharing particularly harrowing events and facts.
This is a book that should be required for every American - a must-listen.
Reading Recommendation? Yes!
Rating: NORTH STAR RATING
Content Warnings? Human or animal loss, Physical abuse/violence
