NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In this beautifully written masterwork, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author 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.NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people … 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.
MARK LYNTON HISTORY PRIZE WINNER
HEARTLAND AWARD WINNER
DAYTON LITERARY PEACE PRIZE FINALIST
NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY
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NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY
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The categories for what did you like about this book don’t apply to this one. I knew nothing of the Jim Crow era other than that it existed and as a white woman, I’m ashamed to say I never realized it was so extreme. The Warmth of Other Suns awoke me to the dangers of such prejudice and hatred and in these days of increasing anger, should be a …
Good book!
The Warmth of Other Suns is narrative nonfiction at its finest. Like The Son, I discovered Isabel Wilkerson’s Warmth in The Atlantic’s 2015 best books guide. It is a masterful history of the Great Migration, that movement of six million mostly rural and often sharecropping blacks from the South to cities across America.
Wilkerson tells the …
Excellent account of the Great Migration. Very enlightening!
By Babbi-Dan on September 10, 2017
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Book review for “The Warmth of Other Suns,” by Isabel Wilkerson:
I purchased this book because I lived near Eustis, Florida, for nearly 20 years and was curious about the history of this area. Boy was I …