Why did I love this book?
I finished this book with the feeling that I had walked the roads and ridden the rails of the great migration of Black Americans out of the South in the decades after World War I.
I grew up as a white kid in the suburbs of Detroit, a city profoundly shaped by that migration. Yet I had never really understood that history—and certainly never felt it deeply—until I got to know Wilkerson's remarkable main characters: three real people who represented the stories of millions.
20 authors picked The Warmth of Other Suns as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In this beautifully written masterwork, the Pulitzer Prize–winnner and bestselling author of Caste 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.
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…