Book Review: The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson

Published: September 7, 2010
Publisher: Random House
Received: purchased
Read from April 22 to September 10, 2022

Synopsis from Goodreads:

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.

Review:

The Warmth of Other Suns looks at the history of the Great Migration in the United States from the beginning to the end. While I had learned about the Great Migration while I was in school, I'd never had such an in depth look at it as this book provides.

At over 600 pages, this is a thick book, which might be off-putting to some people, but I loved the opportunity to get so much information. The book isn't only about the Great Migration. It's also specifically about the stories of three different people who moved to the North and West from the South. There is so much great information in the book that it never felt like it was dragging despite the length.

The stories made the history of the Great Migration feel more real than a more distant explanation would have, and I loved the way that historical facts were weaved together with the stories of Ida Mae, George, and Robert.

I highly recommend this book for everyone. It covers a part of American history that more people should really know about, and it does it in a way that's incredibly accessible and easy to follow.