Why did I love this book?
This may be the greatest creative nonfiction book written in my lifetime.
Drawing on hours and hours of recorded oral histories, Wilkerson dug into the history of the Great Migration like a casting agent picking the very best protagonists to tell the story. And so the work follows the lives three primary figures, Ida Mae Gladney, George Starling, and Robert Foster, as they move north to inhabit the Midwest, the Northeast, and the Pacific West.
This history of social mobility and race reads like an exciting adventure story, and it is stuff-full of genius storytelling, craft, and research. Lyric, deeply sourced, and vividly alive, this is one of the most powerful books I have ever read. I teach it every year and find new gems each time!
17 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…