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The warmth of other suns : the epic story of America's great migration

Author

Wilkerson, Isabel.

Title

The warmth of other suns : the epic story of America's great migration / Isabel Wilkerson.

Format

Book

Edition

1st ed.

Published

New York : Random House, c2010.

Description

x, 622 p. ; 25 cm.

Variant title

Epic story of America's great migration America's great migration

Notes

Includes bibliographical references (p. [555]-587) and index.

Contents

• In the land of the forefathers. Leaving ; The Great Migration, 1915-1970
• Beginnings. Ida Mae Brandon Gladney ; The stirrings of discontent ; George Swanson Starling ; Robert Joseph Pershing Foster ; A burdensome labor ; The Awakening ; Breaking away
• Exodus. The appointed time of their crossing ; Crossing over
• The kinder mistress. Chicago ; New York ; Los Angeles ; The things they left behind ; Transplanted in alien soil ; Divisions ; To bend in strange winds ; The other side of Jordan ; Complications ; The river keeps running ; The prodigals ; Disillusionment ; Revolutions ; The fullness of the migration
• Aftermath. In the places they left ; Losses ; More North and West than South ; Redemption ; And, perhaps, to bloom ; The winter of their lives ; The emancipation of Ida Mae.

Summary

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. Product Description: One of The New York Times Book Reviews 10 Best Books of the Year. 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.

Awards

National Book Critics Circle Award, General Nonfiction Winner, 2010

Subject headings

African Americans--Migrations--History--20th century. Migration, Internal--United States--History--20th century. Rural-urban migration--United States--History--20th century.

ISBN

9780679444329 (alk. paper) : 9780679604075 (eBook) 0679444327 (alk. paper) 0679604073 (eBook)