[HLB]≫ Download The Warmth of Other Suns The Epic Story of America Great Migration Isabel Wilkerson 9780679444329 Books

The Warmth of Other Suns The Epic Story of America Great Migration Isabel Wilkerson 9780679444329 Books

Download As PDF : The Warmth of Other Suns The Epic Story of America Great Migration Isabel Wilkerson 9780679444329 Books

The Warmth of Other Suns The Epic Story of America Great Migration Isabel Wilkerson 9780679444329 Books

I would give this book a thousand stars if I could. I'm very grateful to the author and everyone she interviewed for sharing these stories with me.

This book has deeply affected me. Others have reviewed the content, writing style and extensive research. My comments are of a more personal nature.

Until I read this book I would have told you I (a white Southern woman in her 50s) was particularly well-informed about the experience of African Americans, having read almost all of the authors she quoted in the book and many she didn't, including Toni Morrison, Zora Neale Hurston and more contemporary authors, having studied the civil rights movement from my armchair and seeking out African American theater, arts, and friends. I was wrong. I was ignorant. I didn't know about the Great Migration. I had picked up bits and pieces of the extent of Jim Crow from my reading, and I had read them from the perspective of someone who wanted to draw from their experience without being, apparently, very curious about the context of it. This book, these stories, opened my eyes by putting the experiences in chronological order and in context. Without ever being maudlin, divisive, or melodramatic, the author struck a tone that allowed the reader, me, to feel the power of these stories. The author did a great service to the people she interviewed and her readers by allowing us to decide how we feel about these stories. She confidently and brilliantly presented them in a matter-of-fact manner and in the exact words of the person describing their own experience, trusting, correctly that their emotional impact would not be missed. By focusing on every day experiences rather than sweeping generalities, the book allowed me to see the insidious and pervasive nature of Jim Crow, how it affected every moment of every day, how no action could be too insignificant to be viewed as a threat to the social order and therefore to involve the risk of one's life. I had no idea that it was illegal for black people to work outside the cotton fields or orange groves, nor did I have any idea it was so dangerous to leave the south. These lives and stories are deeply, deeply affecting. It helped (although it hurt emotionally) to simultaneously read The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander and The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay, a novel about apartheid in South Africa.
I personally thank the author and everyone she interviewed. Deepest gratitude.


Tags : The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration [Isabel Wilkerson] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. <b>One of The New York Times Book Review</i>’s 10 Best Books of the Year </b>In this epic,Isabel Wilkerson,The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration,Random House,0679444327,HIS036000,Ethnic Studies - African American Studies,United States - General,African Americans - Migrations - History - 20th century,African Americans;Migrations;History;20th century.,Migration, Internal - United States - History - 20th century,Migration, Internal;United States;History;20th century.,Rural-urban migration - United States - History - 20th century,Rural-urban migration;United States;History;20th century.,20th century,African American,African Americans,BLACK AMERICAN SOCIOLOGY,EMIGRATION AND IMMIGRATION,Emigration & Immigration,Ethnic Issues,GENERAL,General Adult,HISTORY African American,HISTORY United States 20th Century,20th century; african american history; migration; harlem; american; african americans; civil rights; biography; american history; great migration; new york city; new york; history; black history; los angeles; mississippi; chicago; florida; south; african american; us history; pulitzer prize; sociology; race; segregation; social history; african american studies; politics; history books; gifts for history buffs; best non fiction books of all time; oprahs book club list; pulitzer prize books; immigration; best book club books,HISTORY United States General,History,HistoryAmerican,HistorySocial History,HistoryUnited States - 20th Century,History: American,Migration, Internal,Migration, Internal - United States - History - 20th century,Migration, Internal;United States;History;20th century.,Migrations,Non-Fiction,Rural-urban migration,Rural-urban migration - United States - History - 20th century,Rural-urban migration;United States;History;20th century.,SOCIAL SCIENCE Emigration & Immigration,SOCIAL SCIENCE Ethnic Studies African American Studies,Social History,Social ScienceEthnic Studies - African American Studies,United States,United States - 20th Century,United States - General,gift for history buff;chicago gifts;pulitzer prize books;immigration;best book club books;oprahs book club list;best non fiction books of all time;gifts for history buffs;20th century;african american history;migration;harlem;american;african americans;civil rights;biography;american history;great migration;new york city;history;black history;los angeles;chicago;south;african american;us history;pulitzer prize;sociology;race;social history;african american studies;politics;history books,Emigration & Immigration,HISTORY African American,HISTORY United States 20th Century,HISTORY United States General,HistorySocial History,HistoryUnited States - 20th Century,SOCIAL SCIENCE Emigration & Immigration,SOCIAL SCIENCE Ethnic Studies African American Studies,Social History,Social ScienceEthnic Studies - African American Studies,United States - 20th Century,Ethnic Issues,20th century,African Americans,Migration, Internal,Migrations,Rural-urban migration,United States,Black American Sociology,Emigration And Immigration,History,History: American

The Warmth of Other Suns The Epic Story of America Great Migration Isabel Wilkerson 9780679444329 Books Reviews

Between 1915 and 1975, 6 million African Americans left the South to find a better life. They left the racism of the South to only find other forms of racism in the North and West.

The book focuses on three people

Ida Mae Gladney, a sharecropper in Mississippi left for Chicago in 1937. The brutal beating of her husband’s cousin precipitated her flight. She and her children secretly escaped and met her husband at the Okolona train depot and headed north. (Often African Americans were prevented from leaving!).

George Swanson Starling, a fruit picker in FL who tried to organize the workers for better pay, barely escaped with his life when he left in 1945 for Harlem, NY. He became a factory worker in the North and then a railroad porter.

Robert Joseph Pershing drove from Louisiana to California in 1953. He found he was unwelcome at the hotels he passed on his journey west. He had a BS and MD but he was denied privileges in the white hospitals.

Wilkerson skillfully tells their stories. She brings the reality of their situations to the pages. Some of the events are hard to stomach. Cruelty knows no bounds.

This is an incredible non-fiction book that has been researched thoroughly. It is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand racial tensions in this country. Isabel Wilkerson is an amazing and brilliant journalist and writer. Allow yourself plenty of time to read this masterwork.

If you order the paperback or hardback, the size may seem overwhelming and somewhat daunting. I ended up ordering the version, as well, since I was doing some traveling.
If you have a difficult time finding a copy of this book, blame me. I have been telling everyone I know about it and one well-placed friend is buying hundreds of copies to share with friends in Africa who are perplexed by the predicament so many Black Americans find themselves in to this day.
The Warmth of Other Suns paints the picture as compellingly and completely as anything I've ever seen or read. As the stories of desperation, ambition and flight unfold, the reader can see just how many ways the American Dream was yanked away, hidden or otherwise made inaccessible to one generation after another. George, for example, could have been so much more than a railroad porter. He wanted to be more. He TRIED to be more. He even went to college at a time when that was all but unheard of for a young black man from the citrus belt of Florida. Danger and deprivation robbed him of that opportunity and all of the possibilities that would have come with it. Instead, he ended up an overworked denizen of substandard housing, with broken knees and bad kidneys from all the years of picking oranges and tangerines then stacking and unloading luggage on railroad runs along the eastern seaboard. Meanwhile, his New York-born-and-raised children -- not privy to the "village" atmosphere of family and child-rearing of George's native Southland -- were left to fend for themselves in the impersonal, take-a-number concrete jungle of an overpopulated city and, with limited options, spent their energies on getting into, or ducking, trouble. The reader can just see the State of Black America take shape.
This is an absolute masterpiece by a virtuoso writer. As I neared the end of it, I got the blues, knowing how much I would miss reading it. So, I did what any right-thinking person would do I read it again.
Please do yourself a huge favor and read this. It is, simply, amazing.
-Deborah Mathis
I would give this book a thousand stars if I could. I'm very grateful to the author and everyone she interviewed for sharing these stories with me.

This book has deeply affected me. Others have reviewed the content, writing style and extensive research. My comments are of a more personal nature.

Until I read this book I would have told you I (a white Southern woman in her 50s) was particularly well-informed about the experience of African Americans, having read almost all of the authors she quoted in the book and many she didn't, including Toni Morrison, Zora Neale Hurston and more contemporary authors, having studied the civil rights movement from my armchair and seeking out African American theater, arts, and friends. I was wrong. I was ignorant. I didn't know about the Great Migration. I had picked up bits and pieces of the extent of Jim Crow from my reading, and I had read them from the perspective of someone who wanted to draw from their experience without being, apparently, very curious about the context of it. This book, these stories, opened my eyes by putting the experiences in chronological order and in context. Without ever being maudlin, divisive, or melodramatic, the author struck a tone that allowed the reader, me, to feel the power of these stories. The author did a great service to the people she interviewed and her readers by allowing us to decide how we feel about these stories. She confidently and brilliantly presented them in a matter-of-fact manner and in the exact words of the person describing their own experience, trusting, correctly that their emotional impact would not be missed. By focusing on every day experiences rather than sweeping generalities, the book allowed me to see the insidious and pervasive nature of Jim Crow, how it affected every moment of every day, how no action could be too insignificant to be viewed as a threat to the social order and therefore to involve the risk of one's life. I had no idea that it was illegal for black people to work outside the cotton fields or orange groves, nor did I have any idea it was so dangerous to leave the south. These lives and stories are deeply, deeply affecting. It helped (although it hurt emotionally) to simultaneously read The New Jim Crow Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander and The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay, a novel about apartheid in South Africa.
I personally thank the author and everyone she interviewed. Deepest gratitude.