Summary Of The Temperature Of Other Suns By Isabel Wilkerson

Isabel Wilkerson’s The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration delves into the great exodus of Southern blacks to the North from World War I to the 1970s. While this in an already acknowledged period of Southern and American history, the book is still an important source in Southern studies. For one, the book provides students with three extensive firsthand accounts of the period, something they may not have been exposed to before. Meanwhile, some may argue that since a great portion of the stories take place during the lives of the subjects while in the North, that the book technically does not include enough Southern history to be a viable resource. However, those periods in the North makes readers acutely aware
of the sacrifices made by those who fled the South, why they did it, and how harsh the South was in contrast for them to leave it. Because The Warmth of Other Sons brings the mass exodus of Southern blacks to life and is essential to understanding the motives and reasons for the migration, it more than earns it place as significant Southern history resource. Part of The Warmth of Other Sons’ strength as a basis in Southern studies comes from the three in-depth accounts of Ida Mae Brandon Gladney, George Swanson Starling, and Robert Joseph Pershing Foster (Wilkerson 13). The differences in each individual’s origins, lifestyles, and ultimate destinations in the “Great Migration” helps readers understand how widespread and deep the movement really went. For one, it was not isolated to a certain class of black families. Ida Mae was the wife of a poor sharecropper while George was semi-college educated and earned a living wage through a variety of jobs (Wilkerson 31, 127-129). Robert exceeded both in education and in lifestyle as a Morehouse graduate who earned his doctorate from Meharry Medical College (Wilkerson 121-122). Showing how extensive the movement was, each ended up in vastly different parts of the country for a variety of reasons with George in New York City, Ida Mae in Chicago, and Robert in Los Angeles (Wilkerson 228, 237, 267). Even their achievements contrasted greatly. Wilkerson notes that Robert “found financial success and walked taller in a land more suited to him” while George’s “ultimate success was psychological freedom from the bonds of his origins” (531-532). Ida’s “success was spiritual, perhaps the hardest of all to achieve” (Wilkerson 532). This ability to see the individuals within the entire movement helps students see the diversity of the people involved and not just as footnotes on the pages of history. It would be easy to dismiss The Warmth of Other Suns as a Southern history resource with over half of the book taking place during the subjects’ lives in the North, however the contrast of the North brings greater understanding to what the participants gave up and of Southern hardship.
All of the stories are heartbreaking in some way, but the later years of George and Robert in particular makes readers realize how much the migrants lost to better their lives and that of their families. Robert sacrificed a close relationship with his daughters and his wife so they could always fit into California society by requiring high standards for each and George would lose his son to the drug scene in the North (Wilkerson 462,489, 512-513). Then there were the racial problems that still plagued the non-segregated North as whites reacted to blacks becoming an increasing part of their community. Wilkerson tells of incidents like the story of the Clark family who were run out of their new apartment in an all-white neighborhood of Chicago for being black and the ensuing race riot (372-376). Knowing that even with these losses and the harsh conditions of the North that their lives were still better than when they were in the South, allows the audience to understand just how bad things were below the Mason-Dixon
line. The Warmth of Other Suns is a fascinating read in the courage and nerve of black Southerners who made the harrowing journey to the North during the “Great Migration” that should be an important part of Southern history curriculum. By adding the personal stories of Ida Mae, George, and Robert, students no longer see the migrants as just part of history, but real people that suffered and survived. The time the book spends in the North also allows students to understand the sacrifices of the individuals who left the South, and just how unlivable the region was for them to stay in the North. In the end, making Isabel Wilkerson’s The Warmth of Other Suns a permanent part of Southern studies will allow students gain a greater understanding of the period, plus gain a superior compassion for those who lived through it.