Book Study: "The Warmth of Other Suns," Isabel Wilkerson

Book Study, "The Warmth of Other Suns," Isabel Wilkerson

"The Warmth of Other Suns," : 48 pages; 12,382 words; visuals

Mammoth, Monumental, Dissection of the Great Black Migration
The Warmth of Other Suns, Isabel Wilkerson

Isabel Wilkerson hits the ball out of the park in her award-winning, Pulitzer Prize winning historical fiction, The Warmth of Other Suns. Three characters dominate the 538-page epic and come to life through their personal history of living their lives in the south and deciding to flee the oppression of the South.
Little is known about the Great Migration, but Wilkerson links the story together with Ida Mae Brandon Gladney, George Swanson Starling, and Robert Joseph Pershing Foster. All these living humans opened their heartfelt stories to the author, and she follows them through their lives. They act as tour guides to reveal themselves and Black America’s struggle with the outcast, oppressed American Black person. Their stories touched the whole problem and the complete struggle of an internal migration from one section of the country to another in hopes of freedom.
Gladney migrates with her family from a Chickasaw, Mississippi plantation to the industrial North, eventually landing in Chicago. Swanson escapes the law and the Klan in Eustis, Florida, where he organizes the fruit pickers to New York City and lands a job on the railroad and services the Migrants from the train, acting as a guide. Robert Joseph Pershing Foster leaves Louisiana as a medical doctor (surgeon) and winds up in Los Angeles. All our travelers start from the deep South but end up in very different urban settings. The three sojourners all die in their destination—and carry a sense of accomplishment, but an even heavier burden of regret.
Richard Wright, Mahalia Jackson, James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, Arna Bontemps and a whole angel flight of top voices set the tone of the Great Migration, and Wilkerson applies the emotional secret sauce of Black American voice to the biography of the three souls.
I was compelled and surprised reading this story unknown to me about fellow citizens. But I was even more surprised to study what I didn’t know about the country’s very painful history. I highly recommend this book. American needs critical race instruction for our children.



"The Warmth of Other Suns," : 48 pages; 12,382 words; visuals