We will continue our consideration of "what it has meant to be an American" (Karen R. Long, in a review of Empire of the Summer Moon by S.C. Gwynne in The Plain Dealer) with a reading and discussion of The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson. Wilkerson tells the story of America's Great Migration, the emigration of nearly 6 million black citizens from the rural South to the cities of the North and West, over half of the 20th century, in search of a better life.Herself the daughter of people who had been part of this migration, Wilkerson interviewed over 1,200 individuals, visiting senior centers and churches across the country to preserve memories of this truly epic movement across the country. She chose three people to represent this collective experience of leaving one world and adapting to another, Ida Mae Gladney, George Starling, and Robert Foster. Wilkerson said in an interview on NPR's Tell Me More that in writing the book, "one of the goals was to try to get people to be able to imagine themselves doing the kinds of things that they did, and to try to picture: What would you do if you were in that circumstance. And beyond that, my goal was to restore the migration to its proper place in history. And then finally, it would be that all of us recognize that we have so much more in common than we've been led to believe, so much more in common. All of us have someone in our background who wanted something better and acted on it. And that's why we're here."
Toni Morrison describes this work, destined to become a classic of American history, sociology, and biography, as "profound, necessary, and an absolute delight to read." We hope you will join the discussion: Tuesday, July 5, at 6:30 p.m. at Main Library; Thursday, July 21, at 11:00 a.m. at West Ashley Branch Library; and here on the blog.
Visit Wilkerson's website to see pictures of Ida Mae Gladney, George Starling, and Robert Foster.
View an interactive slide show of artist Jacob Lawrence's Migration Series created by The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. Experience Lawrence's vivid paintings of his community, explore his world, and journey with the migrants.
