The migration from Mississippi to Chicago has been the subject of the most research through the years and has dominated discussion of the phenomenon, in part because of the sheer size of the black influx there and because of the great scholarly interest taken in it by a cadre of social scientists working in Chicago at the start of the Migration. BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, The first book about history (other than single biographies) that I decided to read for my 2017 reading challenge was The Warmth of Other Suns. ― Salman Rushdie, quote from Shalimar the Clown, “The ironic fact is that humanism which began with man's being central eventually had no real meaning for people. The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture, ― Philip Roth, quote from My Life as a Man. We hope you’ll join us. To save his life, he fled from Florida and moved to Harlem, New York City. Perhaps it is not a question of whether the migrants brought good or ill to the cities they fled to or were pushed or pulled to their destinations, but a question of how they summoned the courage to leave in the first place or how they found the will to press beyond the forces against them and the faith in a country that had rejected them for so long. offer you some of the highlights. Caste is ranking. Others simply had no desire to relive what they had already left. ― Isabel Wilkerson, quote from The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration, “The measure of a man’s estimate of your strength,” he finally told them, “is the kind of weapons he feels that he must use in order to hold you fast in a prescribed place.” It was just that, to his way of thinking, the way to change things was to be better than anybody else at whatever you did, wear them down with your brilliance, and enjoy the heck out of doing it.’ (p. 410, referring to Dr. Robert Foster’s refusal to allow his daughter to picket with her classmates at Spelman College in Atlanta). Change ), You are commenting using your Google account. “It was like getting unstuck from a magnet,” he said. Rating: (38.6K votes) “They did what human beings looking for freedom, throughout history, have often done. During those many decades, six million black southerners made their way from the Deep South to the North and West to escape Jim Crow laws and to forever leave behind the racism that was oppressive and all-encompassing. They did not ask to be accepted but declared themselves the Americans that perhaps few others recognized but that they had always been deep within their hearts.”, “Choose not to look, however, at your own peril. The subtler form of racism infiltrated all tiers of American society, but it was a good consolation prize for the Blacks at the time since the South was way worse. Iknow you wouldn't hurt them! Maybe you had to live through the worst of times to recognize the best of times when they came to you. 15) ‘The times might have changed, but he never would or sought to. She took the best of what she saw in the North and the South and interwove them in the way she saw fit…Her success was spiritual, perhaps the hardest of all to achieve. Even though he was bullied and harassed for his rhetoric. “I was leaving the South to fling myself into the unknown… I was taking a part of the South to transplant in alien soil, to see if it could grow differently, if it could drink of new and cool rains, bend in strange winds, respond to the warmth of other suns and, perhaps, to bloom.” Some spoke of specific and certain evils. I am trying to keep to the facts. In other words, “The Warmth of Other Suns” is an all-encompassing book whose implications throw light upon many questionable policies enacted or subtly promoted by the government. “But it wasn’t that you liked the taste of it.” (p. 88, on living in a racist, segregated Monroe, Louisiana in the 1930s) Robert Joseph Pershing Foster was a friend and doctor of Ray Charles, the famous singer, and his story is one of the three main narratives in The Warmth of Other Suns. He was in his midforties when the Civil Rights Act was signed and close to fifty when its effects were truly felt. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become The voyage to Los Angeles was filled with unpleasant encounters, as he roamed around to find a room where he could spend the night in. He organized a strike against the land-owners and risked being beaten up to death. Sometimes the migrants dropped puzzle pieces from the past while folding the laundry or stirring the corn bread, and the children would listen between cereal commercials and not truly understand until they grew up and had children and troubles of their own. 1. Isabel Wilkerson’s prizewinning tour de force, Other Suns recounts the African American migration from South to North during the first half of the twentieth century. who share an affinity for books. But for those continuing south, the crews who ran the train, the porters who helped passengers on and off, and the black passengers themselves knew to gather their things and move to the Jim Crow car up front to make sure the races were separated when the train crossed into the state of Virginia. In the spotlight, Isabel puts three persons whose lives are entwined with her story: Ida Mae Brandon Gladney, George Swanson Starling, and Robert Pershing Foster. Fleeing for a better and more playful life was probably the only instigator of this process. The stanza reads: “They fly from the land that bore them, as the Hebrews fled the Nile; from the heavy burthens [sic] o’er them; from unpaid tasks before them; from a serfdom base and vile.” "Self-satisfied gloating. Be skeptical about everything the media portrays as “noble.”. along with her husband, George, and their two young children decided to flee from the cotton fields of Chickasaw County, Mississippi, advance through Milwaukee while hoping to settle in Chicago. I wasn't thinking! See more on GoodReads, “There were six hundred thousand Indian troops in Kashmir but the pogrom of the pandits was not prevented, why was that. Her grandmother fled from the Jim Crow south in favor of a more level playing field up north. the BookQuoters community. Learn more and more, in the speed that the world demands. The problem could have happened anyplace, because the problem is, in fact, at the root.”, “The people did not cross the turnstiles of customs at Ellis Island. The The Warmth of Other Suns Community Note includes chapter-by-chapter summary and analysis, character list, theme list, historical context, author biography and … She is a second generation descendent of a southern black migrant. "A pause, an answer."Ah. "I hope you didn't hurt them. “May the Lord be the first one in the car,” Miss Theenie had whispered about the train they were hoping to catch, “and the last one out.”’ (p. 183, describing the Gladney family’s exodus from Mississippi), 7) ‘A name was a serious undertaking. 622 pages, Rating: The Great Migration began in 1915 and continued steadily until the 1970s when all the vestiges of discrimination and racism in the South finally began to vanish. Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. ― Isabel Wilkerson, quote from The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration, “Our Negro problem, therefore, is not of the Negro's making. A defense witness, who was colored but looked white, took the stand and was being sworn in when the judge told the sheriff the man had been given the wrong Bible.” interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. The hopes of living the American dream were fueled by higher wages which didn’t come absent additional cost. 1) “The measure of a man’s estimate of your strength,” he finally told them, “is the kind of weapons he feels that he must use in order to hold you fast in a prescribed place.” (p. 41, quoting theologian Howard Thurman’s explanation to his daughters of Jim Crow laws for everything from waiting rooms to playgrounds), 2) “You tell us that the South is the best place for us,” the man said. ” is an all-encompassing book whose implications throw light upon many questionable policies enacted or subtly promoted by the government. Synopsis. We also accept ― Isabel Wilkerson, quote from The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration, “There appeared to be an overarching phenomenon that sociologists call a “migrant advantage.” It is some internal resolve that perhaps exists in any immigrant compelled to leave one place for another. The arbitrary nature of grown people’s wrath gave colored children practice for life in the caste system, which is why parents, forced to train their children in the ways of subservience, treated their children as the white people running things treated them. Later, in a discussion of sharecropping in the South on page 167, the author quotes Hortense Powdermaker, an anthropologist: “How a man treats his tenants is not felt to be a matter of public concern, but is as much his private affair as what brand of toothpaste he uses.”, 5) ‘Jim Crow had followed him across the Atlantic, and it was hitting him that he would never get ahead as long as these apostles of Jim Crow were over him.’ (p. 146, summing up the refusal of a southern colonel to make Dr. Foster chief of surgery), 6) ‘Ida Mae and the children rumbled over curled ribbons of dirt road in a brother-in-law’s truck from Miss Theenie’s house to the train depot in Okolona…Miss Theenie had not wanted them to go and had prayed over them and with them and then watched as her second-born daughter left the rutted land of the ancestors. Upon settling in the North, they were compelled to deal with the cold and new climate among other things.