Tags
"The Grapes of Wrath", "The Warmth of Other Suns", America's Great Migration, Favorite Reads, interchapters, Isabel Wilkerson, John Steinbeck, NY Times Best Nonfiction of All Time, The Great Migration
If Ellen hadn’t continued to rave about this book, I would not have read it. The title, The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration, by Isabel Wilkerson (2010), didn’t seem to be something that would interest me.
Fortunately, I followed Ellen’s advice and read and listened to the 640 page nonfiction story of the southern black migration to the Northeast, Midwest and West Coast. I couldn’t put the book down. I found I was learning something on virtually every page I read.
The book covers the exodus and migration of six million blacks within our country between 1915 and 1970. In what was actually an ‘internal migration’ that had significant impacts on both where they came from and where they went, it is a story and a look at history that largely differs from what has previously been written about this movement out of the south and across the country.
In many ways Warmth of Other Suns reminded me of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. As he told the story of the Joads, an ‘Okie’ family that left the Midwest because of the dust storms and ‘moved’ to California, he not only told their story but in what is called ‘interchapters’ explained the history of the times. Just as that book has stayed with me ever since I read it in school, Wilkerson’s book will stay with me.
Wilkerson takes three individuals and follows them from their southern roots to their new homes, giving us an understanding of why these individuals needed to leave the Jim Crow south despite their families having lived there for generations. She follows them on their ‘escape’ by overground railway and, in one case by car, to their new homes. She then tells what happened to each of these three and their families over the next 50+ years of their life.
In preparation for writing Warmth of Other Suns, Wilkerson interviewed more than 1200 individuals before she settled on the three stories in this book. She traveled to each southern home, followed their paths north, and continued to interview the three individuals and their families for many years in their new homes. And similar to Steinbeck, she incorporates what she learned from the 1200 interviews as well as her exploration of census data, newspapers, historical records, etc. into ‘interchapters’ that put these three stories in context.
I’m not sure I’m qualified to agree or disagree with the NY Times about The Warmth of Other Suns being one of the best all time nonfiction books. However, it will certainly be at the top of my list of favorite reads in 2016.
Bob Thurston said:
OK it was already on my list based on Ellen’s rave review, now it looks like required reading!
Richard said:
R,
And if Delabian ever gets enough free time to read, she’ll agree with Ellen, and me.
R
Liz Frost said:
I will download on kindle for my next traveling adventure. Enjoyment of reading while waiting for planes in foreign lands has become a new experience I do enjoy.
Richard said:
Liz,
Be sure to include the audio version. It’s so easy to move back and forth between the two, and you don’t lose your place. If you don’t know how to set it up, ask some 10 year old to help you.
R
Larry M said:
It’s about time you caught up with that one, Richard!
Another good one I finished recently: Seveneves by Neal Stephenson. Found it on Obama’s summer reading list. Very interesting perspectives on the human race. It’ll be on my ‘best of’ list this year.
Richard said:
All,
I just realized that I somehow cut out a paragraph from the review where I discussed the added pleasure of listening to portions of the book. Wilkerson writes beautifully and her use of language is enhanced when you listen to it. It is an added pleasure that I urge you to consider if you decided to read her book. And you can move seamlessly between the written and audio.
Richard
Judy White said:
Yup, I read it years ago and loved it. Glad it’s getting a kind of renaissance recently. I love nonfiction books that sound boring but that you can’t put down. One like that which I just finished is The Wright Brothers by David McCullough.
Land Wayland said:
This material regarding the Southern Black Exodus is also covered in another excellent book, Sundown Towns (reviewed in my “Best Books Read” submission of 2015) that covers in exhaustive detail the explosion in the growth of towns, in every State in the United States, of cities and entire counties that posted large notices on all roads warning Blacks/Negros that they were to ” Be Gone By Sundown Or Else”. I saw such a sign posted in Glendale, Southern California in 1962.
These signs did not have to be posted in towns in the Old South because everyone, black and white, knew what the social rules were and everyone knew the KKK was most willing to enforce them by acting as prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner.
When the black residents of these areas learned that some towns in the rest of the country did not vigorously support such overt bigotry and there were jobs available, the exodus began.
Why any black or brown person continues to live in the South’s Civil War States is beyond me but maybe they do that because it is now clear that the ideas of that culture are found to be firmly entrenched in many, many areas all over the country and moving there can be almost as bad as continuing to live in many Southern towns.
Unless this part of American history is understood by the many, the few can continue get away with their claims that (1) the Civil War was fought over States Rights and (2) that after the Civil War, the former slaves fit very well into Southern society and were (and still are) happy.
I have ordered this book and Amazon says it will be delivered on Monday. Thanks for the referral.
Sheila said:
I heard her speak a few years back. She is an alumna of our kids’ school (John Eaton), which invited her to give a talk about her book as part of their 100th anniversary celebration in 2011. Putting (back) on the list, thanks!
Ben Senturia said:
I agree. Our black-white dinner/dialogue group read this book and loved it. What made the experience even richer were the stories many of the black members shared about how their ancestors found their way from the South to St Louis. It personalized that history.
Emily Nichols Grossi said:
Thank you for this recommendation! I just bought the book (Politics & Prose member sale going on now, y’all!) along with several others that look great! Can’t wait to jump in!
Richard said:
Let me know what you think.