The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson - A Review

If you’ve ever done genealogy, you cannot help but learn in intimate detail the history of your family and often the times in which they lived. The generation born prior to the Baby Boomers is quickly disappearing and so are their stories. Thankfully Isabel Wilkerson pursued the history of three of these people to help Americans understand the epic tale of the Great Migration of southern African-Americans, who came north for a better life.

This migration of close to six million people covered almost seventy years. Within a generation of the Jim Crow laws becoming established throughout the South, black southerners turned to the North. And although it had a confusing set of rules of its own, the North dangled a carrot of hope for all those seeking a chance for improvement. The North did not want to commingle with these poorly paid new migrants, nor did they want them to take any jobs that paid well, nor live in any housing outside the areas established for them. The North did, in fact, do almost anything to prevent their success.

Wilkerson records the journeys of three migrants from the small towns of the South to the big cities of the North and West. Her research shatters many of the pre-conceived ideas about southern black migrants. She reminds us of the courage of all those who come to America, seeking a life with more opportunities for themselves and their children.

Wilkerson weaves the first hand accounts of Ida Mae Gladney in Chicago, George Starling in New York City and Robert Foster in Los Angeles with background information of the times in which they lived. She sites new data to support her conclusions and does it all with incredible understanding and compassion. You will have a difficult time putting the book down, especially in the last hundred pages, as you become more and more attached to these real-life, fallible people.

As with blues music, which is often unacknowledged by today’s African-Americans, this book may be ignored by those whose parents have lived it. Do not let the size of the book discourage you. Read it to better understand your parents and grandparents. Many of us grew up being taught American history from a white male perspective. This book makes you realize that we all influence history by example, by the way we live our lives, by what we will and won’t tolerate and by the choices that we make. Learning about these three individuals proves that we do indeed have the potential of living heroic, albeit unrecognized, lives.

The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson - A Review