The Warmth of Other Suns

The Epic Story of America's Great Migration

By: Isabel Wilkerson

Narrated by: Robin Miles

Length: 22 hrs and 40 mins

Publisher's 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.

NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER
LYNTON HISTORY PRIZE WINNER
HEARTLAND AWARD WINNER
DAYTON LITERARY PEACE PRIZE FINALIST

NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY

The New York Times • USA Today • O: The Oprah Magazine • Amazon • Publishers Weekly • Salon • Newsday • The Daily Beast

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY

The New Yorker • The Washington Post • The Economist • Boston Globe • San Francisco Chronicle • Chicago Tribune • Entertainment Weekly • Philadelphia Inquirer • The Guardian • The Seattle Times • St. Louis Post-Dispatch • The Christian Science Monitor

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.

©2010 Isabel Wilkerson (P)2011 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.

Critic reviews

“A landmark piece of nonfiction . . . sure to hold many surprises for readers of any race or experience….A mesmerizing book that warrants comparison to The Promised Land, Nicholas Lemann’s study of the Great Migration’s early phase, and Common Ground, J. Anthony Lukas’s great, close-range look at racial strife in Boston….[Wilkerson’s] closeness with, and profound affection for, her subjects reflect her deep immersion in their stories and allow the reader to share that connection.” (Janet Maslin, The New York Times)

“ The Warmth of Other Suns is a brilliant and stirring epic, the first book to cover the full half-century of the Great Migration… Wilkerson combines impressive research…with great narrative and literary power. Ms. Wilkerson does for the Great Migration what John Steinbeck did for the Okies in his fiction masterpiece, The Grapes of Wrath; she humanizes history, giving it emotional and psychological depth.” (John Stauffer, Wall Street Journal)

" The Warmth of Other Suns is epic in its reach and in its structure. Told in a voice that echoes the magic cadences of Toni Morrison or the folk wisdom of Zora Neale Hurston’s collected oral histories, Wilkerson’s book pulls not just the expanse of the migration into focus but its overall impact on politics, literature, music, sports — in the nation and the world." (Lynell George, Los Angeles Times)

Brilliant Description of the Great Migration from 1915 to the 1970d

Deeply personal stories of three black migrants who left the South during different decades for the North, Midwest and West Coast. Each departed because of lack of opportunity in their original towns, only to find less than welcomed receptions in their new cities. Nevertheless they each succeeded beyond anything they could have achieved at home. Powerful and heart-rending!

An absolute necessary read for all white people

This book is a brilliant compilation of the inhumanity that existed not too long ago in our country and seems to be rearing its ugly head once again.

Amazing history

So engaging and interesting. This was one of my longest audible downloads and that intimidated me, but the story was so well told that the time passed quickly. I’d recommend this to anyone. Fabulous.

Amazing

I learned so much about the Great Migration that never learned in school. This book is well written and the narrator is very talented. I can't say enough positive about The Warmth of Other Suns.

Eye opening and wonderful

I happened across this book and listened with initial trepidation. That changed to awe at my own ignorance and the heroic and inspiring stories that unfolded. Scholarly but written in a prose that made me want to keep listening with rapt attention. I laughed and cried with these formidable characters who have reshaped many of my perceptions of the world.

Could not put down

There is so much for us to learn about our American history, even very recent history. This is a work of nonfiction that you won't want to put down (or pause, as the case may be), even if you are not a history person.

Beautifully written

Wilkerson has produced a masterpiece with deep time consuming research and so well written that the book is a page turner. I had read Cast first and am telling everybody to get both books.

the Great Migration book

once I picked up on the rhythm and rotation of the 3 stories, I really appreciated it. I feel embarrassed that my education has been so limited.

Worth the Time to Listen...

This was a well-researched and illuminating book which described the migration and resettlement of African-Americans from the Jim Crow South into the northern and western sections of the United States between 1915 and 1970. The author follows the histories of three individuals and their families who took one of the three most common routes north to California, Chicago, and New York City. Ida Mae Gladney left Mississippi in 1937 for Chicago. George Starling escaped from probable lynching in Florida in 1945 to settle in NYC, while Robert Foster choose to leave Louisiana in order to practice surgery in California where he could exercise his profession more fully.

What Isabel Wilkerson does so effectively is personalize the horrors of Jim Crow and the discrimination the migrants and their descendants have experienced. She brings experiences of real people to life by describing the devastating effects our institutionalized racism has had on them personally, professionally, and spiritually. I thought I knew about this history, but my understanding didn't come close. I observed some of these events on the media over many years, but I saw it from the perspective of white privilege, while being mostly unaware of that privilege.

I recommend this book highly. I found the structure a bit confusing, but it's an epic story that would be difficult to organize and relate clearly. In my opinion The Warmth of Other Suns should be required reading for advanced American History classes in every high school of the land. It is a part of our history that is often untold and very seldom adequately appreciated. It is an issue we, as a society, need to address.

Beautifully done

This should be required reading in all middle/high schools and certainly all university programs in the USA.