Name: The Warmth of Other Suns
Rating: 4.573770491803279 (61 reviews)
ISBN: 9780679444329

Isabel Wilkerson

An epic history covering the period from the end of World War I through the 1970s chronicles the decades-long migration of African Americans from the South to the North and West through the stories of three individuals and their families.

The Epic Story of America's Great Migration

The Warmth of Other Suns

Ron Bronson

Really interesting, informative and unlike most books of this ilk; more of a narrative than a true recalling of a different time in America. Often when I read stories like this, I wish there were a broader awareness of some of the facets that make up how we've arrived at this particular point in our history. The Warmth of Other Suns deserves to be part of a list of books such as Leon Litwack's "Trouble In Mind", James D. Anderson's "Education of Blacks in the South" and others I can't think of right this second as part of a broader telling of modern America's story.

Stephanie Ridiculous

History made personal is the very best kind of history book. This is an exceptional look at a portion of American history woefully looked over. I highly recommend it!

Presents an epic history that covers the period from the end of World War I through the 1970s, chronicling the decades-long migration of African Americans from the South to the North and West through the stories of three individuals and their families.

Rose Stanley

By the bittersweet ending, you not only have a better awareness of the Great Migration, you feel as if you know each of the three main players (Ida Mae, George and Robert) personally. Impressive.

This, along with A People's History of the United States, should be required reading for everyone.

Salam Kabbani

A must read for everyone. This historical narrative is moving, enlightening, and at times jarring with the brutal recollections of the many grievances that African Americans faced through the 1970s. 

Dr. Wilkerson takes us along three separate journeys of Dr. Robert Foster, George Starling, and Ida Mae Gladney and the harrowing Jim Crow south that they lived in. We follow these three protagonists on their respective migration journeys to the North and West, along with six million other African Americans in the mass exodus from the South between 1915-1970. 

We learn about the perils and discrimination they continued to face in what was supposed to be post-Jim Crow in the north and west, something that we quickly learn oftentimes did not hold true. We learn about the sacrifices they made after leaving the South, their acclimation to their new cities as well as the discrimination they faced from African Americans who had previously lived in those cities long before they had. Dr. Wilkerson brings us full circle as we revisit the South towards the end of our protagonists' respective lives, and we are left to ponder what may have been had they stayed in the South. 

There is so much more that I want to say but will not, because I cannot speak to any of the experiences these brave stalwart men and women faced, nor am I versed enough in Black history to have the right to analyze beyond what is given to me. I will say that this book is incredible, and it behooves us all to read it time and again, and to disseminate these accurate stories as best as we can so that we can be a positive beacon of continuous progress and change towards ending discrimination and racism in our country. 

Favorite Quote: "And so when blacks who had migrated north and west showed resentment at being considered immigrants, it was perhaps because they knew in their bones that their ancestors had been here before there was a United States of America and that it took their leaving the South to achieve the citizenship they deserved by their ancestry and labors alone. That freedom and those rights had not come automatically, as they should have, but centuries late and of the migrants' own accord." 

Precautions: this book is very heavy emotionally and has vivid descriptions of horrendous acts of violence that were committed against the characters in this narrative.

Kyra Ann Dawkins

This book is everything I'd hoped it would be and more. It took me so long to read it because I wanted to be careful to pay close attention to the interwoven nature of the narratives. In her Note on Methodology, Wilkerson shares that this book was in part shaped to be a dynamic oral history of the Great Migration. As someone who is inspired by oral history in her own work and hopes to study it more formally, the rich intentionality of leaning into three key accounts throughout The Warmth of Other Suns especially resonated with me. I could feel the stories stirring something in my bones, knowing that my grandparents were products of the Great Migration. I think this should be required reading for high school students across the nation so that this crucial era of American history can finally receive the caliber of consideration it deserves.

Jeni Enjaian

I found this book fascinating. Wilkerson deftly weaves together her personal history as the daughter of two of these migrants, the oral history she obtained from so many, and the history of the actual movement into an amazing book. She balances the threads of three different "protagonists" whose journeys take place all at slightly different time periods of this migration along with the chronological history of this movement. Even with its nearly 550 pages, Wilkerson barely scratches the surface of everything this story has to tell. 
I highly recommend this book.

Sheryl Levitt

The most beautifully-written nonfiction I've read to date.

The three individuals whose stories are woven throughout this book are completely unlike one another. All migrated from the South, but were born and went North in different decades, to different cities, and experienced racism and discrimination in different ways. Their stories are diverse and touching. 

Along with these stories, clippings from newspapers and are sprinkled in that paint a picture of how the white, upper-caste population reacted to the migration. Wilkerson also adds notes from scholarly studies that reveal how that sentiment was typically unwarranted and downright incorrect.

My only complaint would be that Wilkerson often repeated facts or summarized stories told earlier in the book. I imagine this would be helpful to someone reading the book over a long stretch of time, but it was unnecessary for me. Think of binge watching a show and wanting to fast-forward through the recap at the beginning of every episode.

I read this right after reading novels by Toni Morrison, Richard Wright, and James Baldwin - who were were part of the Great Migration themselves. I'd recommend reading some of their works if you're interested in diving further into this topic or if you just want to read some spectacular writing.

Michael Hessling

Epic. A former sharecropper, who, 60 years later, actually meets Barack Obama. At first, I struggled with the shifting timelines, but, Ms. Wilkerson is wiser than me: she was going by the age of her protagonists.

The Warmth of Other Suns The Epic Story of America's Great Migration

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