Why am I passionate about this?
As a child, it was shocking to observe prejudice and bullying. I wanted with all my being to resist, to make things right. I trust that in this I am not alone. Juxtaposed, I remember instances of compassion and still feel grateful. My oldest brother Luke helped me think deeply about these kinds of events. In response, I dedicated myself to a career in music and arts in education. I felt blessed to bring students from different cultures together to build creativity, understanding, and community. I wanted to empower young people to voice their feelings and thoughts in the poetry, stories, and plays they wrote, set to music, and performed.
Julie's book list on building compassion around issues of race
Why did Julie love this book?
This book captured me from its first pages, a history that reads like a novel. “They fled as if under a spell or a high fever,” Isabel Wilkerson writes, explaining the exodus from the South by oppressed African Americans.
As a writer, she drew me in by focusing on three people she came to know, who comprise the main story, providing an intimate window into the epic event. And didn’t they meet resistance and white supremacy in the North, too? Sadly, of course. I knew little about the Great Migration before and yet had learned much about the Harlem Renaissance, the southern roots of jazz in Chicago, and more. Six million on the move! This book taught me not just about our country in the past but our present as well.
18 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…