The Warmth of Other Suns (2010) by Isabel Wilkerson

 100 Best Books of the 21st Century: The New York Times

The Warmth of Other Suns (2010)

by Isabel Wilkerson

#2

   The Warmth of Other Suns is my 66th read from the 100 Best Books of the 21st Century list from the New York Times.  Most of those reads proceded the publication of the list, but I found there were a good dozen non-fiction titles on the list that seemed like books I really *should* read.  At Number Two, Isabel Wilkerson's monster work of history on the African American migration is the last major title on the list that I handed tackled.  I ended up reading it on my Kindle because it is 622 pages long and I didn't fancy it as an Audiobook or a hard copy.  Mostly I read it on my most recent vacation on the East Coast.  The subject matter blended nicely with the recent chapter of the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America- each of the individuals Wilkerson focuses in on could be characters from a novel from Mississippi, Alabama or Louisiana. 

  These are the people that left, a viewpoint largely missing from the map-based approach of the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America, which essentially guarantees a roster of losers from nowhere who do nothing- I mean almost by definition.   Wilkerson clears up many questions I had about why EVERYONE didn't leave.  Turns out, the local authorities and employers made it difficult on top of the fact that many black southerners lacked the resources to do anything besides simply existing. 

  What I've seen in the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America is that most people just want to be left alone to try the best they can.  For example, I haven't read a single novel involving poor people in rural America waiting for any government to do anything for them in any way, shape or form.  Mostly what I've read is about scenario's where the local power structures actively interfere with the ability of certain groups to simply exist without being actively oppressed in ways subtle and less subtle. 

  I'm not just talking about the rural south- the poor of New England have a thing or two to say about being forced into particular modes of life.  Wilkerson follows he subject through their entire lives, and it becomes clear that no one but no one "gets over" the experience of the systemic racism as practiced in the deep south in the early 20th century.  Even if you cut off the actual period of slavery- which for the characters in this book represented their GRANDPARENTS, the Jim Crow period was in many ways crueler because it held out at least the hope of a semblance of the ability of black Americans to go about their business, but the reality was anything but that.