
The Warmth of Other Suns
The Epic Story of America's Great Migration
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Narrated by:
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Robin Miles
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By:
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Isabel Wilkerson
About this listen
Brought to you by Penguin.
From the winner of the Pulitzer Prize, this is one of the great untold stories of American history: the migration of Black citizens who fled the south and went north in search of a better life.
From 1915 to 1970, an exodus of almost six million people would change the face of America. With stunning historical detail, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Isabel Wilkerson gives us this definitive, vividly dramatic account of how these journeys unfolded.
Based on interviews with more than 1,000 people and access to new data and official records, The Warmth of Other Suns tells the story of America's Great Migration 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, becoming the personal physician to Ray Charles as part of a glitteringly successful medical career.
Wilkerson brilliantly captures their first treacherous and exhausting cross-country journeys, as well as how they changed their new homes forever.
©2021 Isabel Wilkerson (P)2021 Penguin AudioCritic reviews
"A landmark piece of non-fiction." (Janet Maslin, The New York Times)
"You will never forget these people." (Gay Talese)
"A brilliant and stirring epic." (John Stauffer, Wall Street Journal)
Tour de Force
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Stunningly beautiful book
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Powerful stories in every way
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Fascinating
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Fantastic A brilliant book
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African Americans moved from the rural South to cities in the North in droves between 1910 and 1970 with increasing numbers each decade. The historical work does not gloss over the harsh conditions and the graphic detail of racism that plagued the South. The escape to the North is courageous as it is risky, steeped in the hope of a better future for the central characters and their children.
Isabel Wilkerson weaves this enormous oral history project based on hundreds of interviews, each recorded over dozens (some, hundreds) of hours. What she’s achieved here is a truly remarkable feat that brings together individual experiences and paints a picture of the Great Migration from the ground up. What’s more – they are all somehow connected. And there are a lot of familiar names who drop into the narrative, from Ray Charles to W. E. B. Du Bois.
The writer argues that there has been a resistance to recognise the Great Migration as a migration at all, and that typical understandings about Southerners as uneducated and backwards have been dispelled by what actually took place. She cites a plethora of surveys, studies and news clippings. She also provides ample context from before and after the Great Migration, from slavery to modern political shifts.
“By their actions, they did not dream the American Dream. They willed it into being by a definition of their own choosing. They did not ask to be accepted, but declared themselves the Americans that perhaps few others recognised, but that they had always been deep within their hearts.” (Epilogue)
I enjoy non-fiction in Audible form, and this was a particularly great investment of my time. I was thoroughly engrossed in the life stories of Robert, Ida Mae and George from their childhood to final hours. I felt my heart painfully twinge at all they had been through. I understood the parallels being made with migrants coming into the US from outside its borders.
There were a few moments where I felt Wilkerson was being too soft on systematic structural racism by equalising the experiences of Black and white communities, but these instances were few in number. It really is a blessing that she captured the last remaining voices of the Great Migration generation for this pivotal project. If you enjoy this genre, or want to know more about this period in US history, I highly recommend!
Excellent listen for charting the Great Migration
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Thank you for a rare and exemplary piece of work.
An Historical Masterpiece
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a book to pass on to our next generations
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Life Changing
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Shockingly interesting
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