Isabel Wilkerson: The Warmth of Other Suns

By weaving the incredible journey of three black individuals who fled the South, Isabel Wilkerson recounts the stunning history of the Great Migration between 1915 to 1970. Ida Mae Brandon Gladney, a cotton picker from Mississippi, migrated to Chicago in 1937; George Swanson Starling, a citrus picker from Florida, migrated to New York in 1945; and Robert Joseph Pershing Foster, a trained doctor from Louisiana, migrated to California. Their stories represent the millions of Southern blacks who left their home in search of freedom from slave masters, klansmen, and the institution of Jim Crow. Wilkerson’s writing is revetting, particularly the way she described the vivid of mob lynching, inhuman torturing, and castrating (then made the victim eat the severed body parts). The disturbing details remind us how black American was treated in this country. Wilkerson’s narrative prose combined with her analytical force make this book an essential read, especially for the celebration of the Black History Month.