The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration Paperback – October 4, 2011

The Great Migration of black Americans from the South to America's North and West was one of the largest mass migrations of humans in history, but it happened over such a long period of time, approximately 60 years, it happened almost imperceptibly. Ms. Wilkerson follows the story of three individuals who made the daring trek from the rural South to the great unknown urban world as stand-ins for the millions who joined them.Ms. Wilkerson is first and foremost a story teller, and while this is a real history book packed with plenty of facts, figures and analysis, the stories are so lively and heartfelt, it makes for enjoyable reading. The tales of life in the Jim Crow South of sharecroppers still in near-bondage to planters, men and women who toiled in cotton fields and orchards barely scraping out a living, are richly drawn. The constant sense of oppression and fear that these people lived daily is palpable. It is appalling to learn of the daily humiliations and commonplace violence visited upon blacks in the South, and though to a much lesser degree, in the new places they made home.But this is not a sad or angry book. It's not a polemic. It's like shared family stories handed down over generations. My mother in law was a black woman who migrated from West Virginia to New York in the early '40s, and she just never shared her stories with my wife. Surely, some of them were too painful. This books opens up those mysteries a bit.The best thing a piece of history can do for us is help us better understand the world we live in now, and that is what this magnificent book does for us. We learn much about black Southern folkways and can see these strands running through contemporary American black culture.This is a story told by a woman who loves and understands her people, and she invites the reader in to join her in understanding and love.Wonderful!

This book truly moved me. The Warmth of Other Suns tells powerful, personal stories that stay with you. The writing is beautiful, and the history is told in such a human and meaningful way. I highly recommend it.

The Warmth of Other Suns is a brilliantly written compilation of three personal accounts through the Great Migration. I felt as though I were an eyewitness to the very stories told on its pages.Isabel's writings put many things into perspective for me from generational responsibility to sacrifice. Robert Foster and George Starling are my favorite characters.My grandmother was the daughter of a sharecropper and cotton picker in North Carolina. As I'm writing this, I can hear my grandmother saying about someone who aggravated her in some way, "He got on my last cotton pickin' nerve!" That was one of her favorite sayings, and I never thought much about it until now. My grandmother migrated to New Jersey in the 50's after having my mother in 1949. She left my mother in NC with my great grandmother until she could get herself established. She had four brothers and sisters and they all ended up in New Jersey - my grandmother followed her two oldest brothers. My grandmother worked factory jobs in NJ and eventually became a teacher's aide. My mother came to NJ as a teen and worked as an insurance clerk and then went into law enforcement. My family's mentality was more about "getting that good job to live today" than "establishing and handing down a legacy for tomorrow." An "Education first - No Exceptions" mentality was Robert Foster's legacy that he wanted to give his children more than anything, and the best at that.I grew such an admiration for Robert Foster, notwithstanding being one of the descendants who did not come from a family that touted the importance of education. I never attended college, but Robert's story gave me an appreciation for our generational responsibility to be the very best we can be, no matter the path we choose.While reading George's story, I could visualize a great chasm between his two possible life outcomes, narrowing and widening with each decision he made. George stood on the bad side, but each time it narrowed, George could jump to the other side. The chasm widened when George's father told him he wouldn't continue paying for his education when he could be working, and then narrowed when George got a job to help pay for school. It widened again when George married Inez, and there were a couple of other times when I became hopeful and it narrowed again. Ultimately, the chasm became as wide as the distance between New York and California and I wondered if George would ever reach his full potential.Warmth charts what led to the crime, drugs, and survival mentality of many blacks in our major cities. It thoroughly illustrates the impact of the country's hostile response to the Great Migration and how it shaped our society and cities. I was shocked to read about the "scholars" who deny the obvious impact enslavement (both mentally and physically) has had on generations of blacks, and at the hand of white segregationists, starting with the very first who kidnapped the first African from his native land to those who fought to keep his descendants enslaved centuries later.One person said in the comments this book was a "dramatization" and attempted to demonize the South. No one can demonize a system designed to build a country's economy (and personal wealth) on the free labor of those resisting, instilling fear and inflicting inhumane treatment, and on FELLOW HUMAN BEINGS. The system was a demon from the beginning, even before its institution and when it was still forming in the minds of its pioneers.Warmth so accurately describes what happens when you force a race into one area of town and refuse them jobs and even a salary lending to the same work/life balance as their white counterparts, which is absolutely necessary to raise their children to become anything different from what many sadly became.This book is EPIC and long overdue. We are finally getting more than what's in the history books written by white authors sharing their own world views, many of whom supported slavery and segregation. I had many aha! moments, and learned so much. Warmth filled-in so many blanks for me and gave me a fuller and richer understanding of America's horrific history. It's given me a hypersensitivity to the comeback White Supremacists are so desperately trying to make.As I turned the final pages of the book, I felt a sadness within - I didn't want this two-week journey I had been on to end! So, I'll do the only thing I can do... go back to page 1.I am grateful that Isabel saw the importance of writing this piece while the gems who lived out the gruesome accounts on its pages were still alive to share their journeys.Well done, Isabel. Well done.