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The Warmth of Other Suns

The Epic Story of America's Great Migration

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The Warmth of Other Suns

By: Isabel Wilkerson
Narrated by: Robin Miles
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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 a thousand 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, 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.

'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

'The mass migration of African Americans out of the US south forever changed the country's cultural fabric - and Wilkerson's history of this period is full of sacrifice and hope ... a long overdue account' Lettecha Johnson, Guardian

'A deeply affecting, finely crafted and heroic book. . . .Wilkerson has taken on one of the most important demographic upheavals of the past century and told it through the lives of three people ... lyrical and tragic' Jill Lepore, New Yorker

© Isabel Wilkerson 2020 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

 Americas Black & African American Emigration & Immigration Freedom & Security Politics & Government Social Sciences United States Thought-Provoking Civil rights Chicago American History Social justice Mississippi
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Critic reviews

A narrative epic rigorous enough to impress all but the crankiest of scholars, yet so immensely readable as to land the author a future place on Oprah's couch. (David Oshinsky, The New York Times Book Review)
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)
Scholarly but very readable, this book, for all its rigor, is so absorbing, it should come with a caveat: Pick it up only when you can lose yourself entirely.
Profound, necessary and an absolute delight to read. (Toni Morrison)
Isabel Wilkerson's The Warmth of Other Suns is an American masterpiece, a stupendous literary success that channels the social sciences as iconic biography in order to tell a vast story of a people's reinvention of itself and of a nation--the first complete history of the Great Black Migration from start to finish, north, east, west. (David Levering Lewis)
Not since Alex Haley's Roots has there been a history of equal literary quality where the writing surmounts the rhythmic soul of fiction, where the writer's voice sings a song of redemptive glory as true as Faulkner's southern cantatas. (The San Francisco Examiner)
[A] sweeping history of the Great Migration... The Warmth of Other Suns builds upon such purely academic works to make the migrant experience both accessible and emotionally compelling. (NPR.org)
One of the most lyrical and important books of the season (David Shribman)
A seminal work of narrative nonfiction. . . . You will never forget these people. (Gay Talese)
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)
All stars
Most relevant
Although this book may appear lengthy, it needed all of that time to explore and describe these stories. I found the stories to be captivating and in many cases astonishing. It certainly highlighted this era of US history and how those who were black had to navigate that realm. Slavery did not end with slavery, it continued in different forms after that. As a white person listening to this, I felt shame and I felt strongly how Unjust the system had been made to be for those people who had black skin or were considered Colored. Skin colour, an aspect of our outer appearance we had no choice in when we were born determined so much, or was made to determine so much.
I must applaud the use of words and imagery, this book was so eloquently written and so poetically described.
Overall I would highly recommend this book. You will learn a great deal about this era, the injustices felt by those who were considered Coloured or black.
A terrific read.

Highly recommend, captivating and interesting.

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A very enjoyable social history Definitely worth a listen. Excellent book and very informative and written in a very accessible way .

Fantastic A brilliant book

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This is a mammoth non-fiction audio book at 22 hours which takes the listener through the period of ‘The Great Migration’ in the USA through the lens of three main figures. I listened to it over several months, immersed in the journeys and the reflections on the legacies of each of the characters.

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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I was transfixed for every minute of the narrative. this should be compulsory reading in schools. it brings home the history in a way that no standard history book can.

Powerful stories in every way

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Beautifully narrated. A perfect balance between the forgotten history of thousands of families and the extroardinary lives that survived to tell it to us. A masterpiece of oral history.

a book to pass on to our next generations

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