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

Written by Isabel Wilkerson

Narrated by Robin Miles

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER - TIME’S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE - ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES’S FIVE BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY - A KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST NONFICTION BOOK OF THE CENTURY - LOS ANGELES TIMES’S #1 NONFICTION BOOK OF THE LAST 30 YEARS - AN OPRAH DAILY BEST NONFICTION BOOK OF THE PAST TWO DECADES

“A brilliant and stirring epic . . . 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, The Wall Street Journal

“What she’s done with these oral histories is stow memory in amber.”—Lynell George, Los Angeles Times

WINNER: The Mark Lynton History Prize - The Anisfield-Wolf Award for Nonfiction - The Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize - The Hurston-Wright Award for Nonfiction - The Hillman Prize for Book Journalism - NAACP Image Award for Best Literary Debut - Stephen Ambrose Oral History Prize

FINALIST: The PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction - Dayton Literary Peace Prize

ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times - USA Today - Publishers Weekly - O: The Oprah Magazine - Salon - Newsday - The Daily Beast

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: 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

In this beautifully written masterwork, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Isabel Wilkerson presents a definitive and dramatic account of one of the great untold stories of American history: the Great Migration of six million Black citizens who fled the South for the North and West in search of a better life, from World War I to 1970.

Wilkerson tells this interwoven story through the lives of three unforgettable protagonists: Ida Mae Gladney, a sharecropper’s wife, who in 1937 fled Mississippi for Chicago; sharp and quick-tempered George Starling, who in 1945 fled Florida for Harlem, and Robert Foster, a surgeon who left Louisiana in 1953 in hopes of making it in California.

Wilkerson brilliantly captures their first treacherous cross-country journeys by car and train and their new lives in colonies in the New World. 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 a modern classic.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio
• Release date: Mar 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781455814251

Isabel Wilkerson

Isabel Wilkerson won the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing for her reporting as Chicago bureau chief of The New York Times. The award made her the first black woman in the history of American journalism to win a Pulitzer Prize and the first African American to win for individual reporting. She won the George Polk Award for her coverage of the Midwest and a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship for her research into the Great Migration. She has lectured on narrative writing at the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University and has served as Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University and as the James M. Cox Jr. Professor of Journalism at Emory University. She is currently Professor of Journalism and Director of Narrative Nonfiction at Boston University. During the Great Migration, her parents journeyed from Georgia and southern Virginia to Washington, D.C., where she was born and reared. This is her first book.

Reviews for The Warmth of Other Suns

[tlonry · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book was so awesome. I didn’t know what exactly to expect, but as I went through it felt like I knew each one of these people. They began to feel like family and I guess in someways, they are. I loved hearing the 1st account experiences and what we as a people have truly overcome and continue to fight uphill against. Thank you so much for this.

[angiejackson27 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book was everything! So much research and information. My grandparents migrated north during that time. It’s so inspiring to get the knowledge the led them. The book had so much detail like addresses, regions, cities and counties that actually exist! I am full! What a time?!

[jhayla · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I loved this book. It’s so easy to not really think about how things are they way they are and this book really helped widen my perspective. I’m born in Chicago but my maternal grandmother is from Mississippi. She never talks about it or visits much but now I’m really intrigued to see what that life was like, even though I’m sure there’s a lot of differences. All and all the material was eye opening and I truly enjoyed it. Thank you.

[AA EAGER · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Superb book, should be required reading for all Americans so we can understand the nationwide institutional racism that was in place even decades after the civil war and emancipation that lasted until the Civil Rights act of 1963 and even after that. What seems shocking now was “normal” in the pre-and post WWII years, in many of our lifetimes. These includes detailed narrative and eye-witness accounts of 3 migrants. Details of their awful treatment both in Jim Crowe Southern States and in Northern & Western States. This is a book that should teach us that we should understand our past sins as a nation not to lay blame and judge harshly with history on our side, but to remove any pre-judged stereotyping we may have about blacks vs whites and treat everyone fairly on their merits as individuals

[Benjamin Bernstein · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Extraordinary! As a 64-year-old who grew up white and privileged, this book helped me feel what it was like to have gone through these challenging experiences. I love that this book not only gave me a much deeper education on the great migration, but gave me much deeper empathy for what so many black people had to go through. Highly recommended!

[davischristopherjohn · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Heavily researched book filled with information that was never afforded to American students when I was in school.

[Lenore Sullivan Trammell · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book is excellent! Beautifully written and thoughtful while well researched!

[Albert S · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Perfect! If you want to know not just about the migration but essentially what it meant to be black in America during the 20th Century then read this book. It's truly eye opening and life changing.

[Coleen R Wilson · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book both broke my heart and made me proud of my grandmother and some of her siblings to move up north for a better life. I have no other words other than this should be a mandatory read for high schoolers

[Freddie Gary · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book really helps you understand the Black migration to the North and West. The personal stories keep you yearning for more and bring about a range of emotions.

[Tochukwu Anyansi · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An incredible journey spanning decades from 1910 to the 2012, reliving the lives of three great people, experiencing their pain, terror and frustrations in the South, living through Jim Crow. It was a revelation of the real America, founded on the backs of black people who were taken from their homes, forced to work for the white people and used and discarded like rags. Every American citizen or resident needs to read this book without judging or blaming but with humble reflection on the capacity of human beings to be evil and for some to rise above their natures and thrive despite the evil and terror around them. What white America did to black people is comparable to what the Nazis did to the Jews in the holocaust. Like the Germans, Americans should never forget!

[Lorraine Clark · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I struggle to find the words that would convey what The Warmth of Other Suns conveyed. It is a captivating mesh of stories of personal struggle, perseverance, and growth. It provides historical insight in the most personal way. Well researched, well written, informative and moving.

[Lionel Nkaya · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Amazing research and great reporting by the author. Do not miss this book

[Richa Sehgal · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Awesome book on migration. In-depth knowledge of racial injustice cries of today

[Beth Hay · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A masterwork. Engrossing telling of a complex story. Beautifully read and presented. I cried when it was finished. I was grateful for every minute. Brilliant.

[Lela McCall · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a high-impact book with no judgement or harsh blame. Highly recommend. Especially if you’re from the South.

[Susan Bailey · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Great book. Wonderful history lesson. I learned so much from the characters lives and their journey. An eye opener for sure.

[Kelly Izell · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

These stories helped me learn about why & how the migration happened. It also gave a good explanation for why black people cannot build generational wealth the same way as white people. wish I had been required to read this earlier in life; it should be on school reading lists!

[Natalie Griffin · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book was phenomenal. It gave a much deeper history of the Great Migration than other material you have probably read on the topic. Beautifully written and very enlightening.

[Sam Rhodes · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

EXCELLENT, EXCELLENT, EXCELLENT .The narrator was also EXTREMELY good .

[Ash George · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a vitally important and utterly compelling book. It is clear that underneath the book is a commitment to academic rigour but there is nothing about it that is dry or formal. The lives of the three prime characters illustrate the lived experience of the great migration really well. Wilkerson has produced a wonderful work of history blended with three stunning biographies. Superb!!!

[Alan Bergstein · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It details an enormous migration within the United States, taking place over decades, by weaving the life stories of three amazing individuals - who were born during Jim Crow- into the circumstances and events that surrounded them and in which they unintentionally played roles, as they each moved forward on one of three paths out of the South, leading to the transformation of the South, North, East and West, and the sparking of many creative movements that changed American life and culture, in addition to opening pathways toward a more equitable society.

[Sharon Traylor · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was so awesome so glad I was finally able to read/listen. Awesome. I want to read again.

[Kristina · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Beautiful, uncolored and accurate description of recent African American history. Love how she presented facts alongside true life stories. I also enjoyed how she described the 'caste' system, and compared this migration to other migrations around the world. Here, African American history is depicted clearly so that anyone can understand the feelings of the individuals that have lived and are currently living it. Everyone should read this book!

[Catherine Frost · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Fascinating and breathtaking in scope. Many traumatic events were difficult to listen to but need to be told. I learned so much from this book.

[Natalie Houde · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

You’ll fall in love with the characters! Within their three stories of leaving the south, historical data on demographics and research on blacks migrating to the north are explained. This book challenges what you think you know and also enlightens you to the very disturbing behavior of whites towards blacks.

[Darcia Helle · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book wrecked me.

The Warmth of Other Suns is nonfiction about the migration of Black southerners into the north and west, and toward freedom. We follow three migrants from the beginning to the end of their lives, and broader facts are distributed throughout, giving this book a personal, memoir feel.

The writing is engaging, immersive, conversational, and totally captivating.

I thought I knew a lot about this topic. I didn’t. Or I didn’t know the right things, the details. The people. The truth.

I learned so much. My emotions were all over the place.

This book needs to be mandatory reading in every single American high school. Everyone should read it. Really. Just read it. Because I have few words and way too many feelings.

The narrator is perfection, as is the writing.

[Phyllis Ruff · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Beautifully and brilliantly written. I captured and kept me til the last word. Thank you Ms. Wilkerson.

[David · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book is important, moving and enjoyable on all levels.

[Isabelle · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Ms. Wilkerson's detailed biographies of three individuals representing the great migration of African Americans out of the south following the failure of post Civil War Reconstruction until the 1960s is a remarkable combination of superb academic research, profound empathy, and evocative writing. Her telling of the oftimes harrowing travels to escape the oppressive racism of Jim Crow and the ordeals imposed by an equally denigrating environment in the cities of the North and West make for nail-biting reading. Her close and sympathetic relationships with the three very different people Who are the focus of her narrativeuntil the end of their days around the turn of the 21st century