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by Isabel Wilkerson
Hardcover- $25.00
In this epic, beautifully written masterwork, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Isabel Wilkerson chronicles one of the great untold stories ...
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The years of research that Isabel Wilkerson expended on this book have paid off in full. This is an addictive page turner that reveals the epic story of the African American migration from the South to the North and West during the Jim Crow era through the personal narratives of three individuals. Each of the life stories reveals the conditions in differing areas of the South and the response of the persecuted to the injustices suffered. The difficult journeys to the North are revealed, as are the not-so-idyllic conditions in the Northern cities where the exodus ended. An inspiring and informative work, The Warmth of Other Suns is worth the time and effort to read.
This is a remarkable book that brings to life the great migration within our own country. The author follows three individuals in their move across country to find a better life within our borders from 1910-1970. This is a part of our American history not studied in the public school systems.
This book read like fiction. It is the true story of three peoples lives and their immigration form the South to the North over a lifetime. History lives in this book. Fascinating.
This is a "MUST" read! The author, Isabel Wilkerson, has done an outstanding job of compiling research covering numerous years (1915 to 1970) of the migration within the United States of the southern black populace from the south to the north and west. The story, which reads like fiction, is told using three characters who represent some of the populace seeking a better life for themselves and their families. Many readers will see themselves, family members, friends and/or the community that they live/d in through the experiences that the characters endured. Other readers will find the struggles of the characters to be "heart-wrenching, eye-opening and unbelievable". This story should be required reading in every college program.
This is the story of what might be the largest human migration in history, most of it undocumented at the time. The research for this book is prodigious but Ms Wilkerson brings this big story to the human level with the individual stories. The stories are compelling and carry the reader quickly through this sizable book.
A compelling, fact revealing, often horrifying essay on the travesty of Jim Crowe laws that existed for much too long in this country. An eye opener, but VERY LONG AND TEXTBOOK like. This should have been edited further to keep the impact and the readers attentive. Resulted in a lot of heated discussion at group, but was a chore to read. Worth plugging through,though.
Extremely informative about the fact that slavery did not end for many decades after the civil War. The migration North had many extreme difficulties for those seeking freedom from
This should be required reading in American high schools. We all know about the Depression but do we all know about the Great Migration, which affected many more people over a much longer span of time?
Our Book Club found lots to discuss with this book. Many of us, although our lives overlapped with the latter part of this period of migration by the southern blacks to the major cities in the north or west, really didn't have a firm understanding of how badly they were mistreated in the south as sharecroppers by the land owners. And still, they considered the south their home and often travelled south to visit relatives who stayed behind, or sent their children south to visit family. In the north, prejudice existed as well, but it was a different type of discrimination. Most of us ( a few grew up in the south, or lived for a time in the south and remembered segregated restaurants, bathrooms, schools) only had a vague knowledge of what "Jim Crow laws" meant and agreed we hadn't been educated adequately about this. We saw lots of parallels in northern prejudice to the great European migration at the beginning of the 20th century (no Irish need apply, and other ethnic populations as well) and even today with the fear of immigrants running rampant throughout this election cycle. Yes, there was indeed a lot to discuss about this book. That said, we also thought that at times it read like a dissertation and was somewhat repetitive. It was longer than it needed to be. Extremely well researched and engaging. Our group would recommend it to other Book Clubs.
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