Reddit mentions of The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration

How? With what money? With what resources? With what education? You're talking about an entire population that was intentionally deprived of familial connections, cultural connections, the ability to organize, the ability to build wealth, the ability to exercise any autonomy, literacy, and education.

Africa is not exactly a small place, and most ex-slaves didn't even know where their ancestors had been kidnapped from.

Also keep in mind how much different things looked at the end of the Civil War than much later. Ex-slaves were promised equality with whites, full rights as citizens of the US, and given the promise of reparations for slavery. Congress passed a law in 1865 that guaranteed full citizenship regardless of race and the 14th amendment was circulated starting in 1866 and became part of the constitution in 1868. For a decade following the end of the Civil War Reconstruction proceeded at a fast pace. Laws were changed, progress was made, historical iniquities were being redressed. The vast majority of ex-slaves in this situation who were offered the possibility of staying wherever they were and using the labor skills they already had to attempt to make a living in America (either through sharecropping or on their own) seemed enormously enticing.

At a minimum the situation looked to be superior to their previous situation of enslavement. They were ostensibly free. They could keep their families together, they could build their lives up (in terms of wealth, community, education, skills, ambition, etc.), and they had the prospect of attaining true equality of stature and accomplishment with whites in perhaps a generation or so.

It was not until two or three decades later when Reconstruction had been destroyed and dismantled, when slavery had been replaced with a racial caste system that was becoming enshrined in custom and law (Jim Crow et al), and when it became abundantly clear that the end of slavery did not mean the end of white supremacy in America that black Americans began to comprehend that the society they lived in was going to limit the extent of their advancements to a very narrowly defined box not much expanded from where it had been before. And then there really was a huge debate on what to do. Black communities felt the oppression, understood the long-term implications and generally understood that the status quo was untenable.

Eventually they did take action and move, out of the South and into the North and the West in one of the most significant demographic shifts in the 20th century called The Great Migration. By then they had more money, more resources, more education, much greater literacy, and greater ability to move around (due to the advent of automobiles and the advancement of railroads). But even so, and even moving within the US alone, it was an enormously challenging endeavor that not all African-Americans undertook.

If you want to get some additional perspective on what things were like I'd suggest reading "The Warmth of Other Suns" by Isabel Wilkerson.

That story is from page 208 in "The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration." It's gobsmacking. Robert Joseph Pershing Foster was a physician and a veteran. If he couldn't get a room, imagine what it was like for an ordinary African-American. http://www.amazon.com/The-Warmth-Other-Suns-Migration/dp/0679763880

I got it on audible and listened to it in about 2weeks. If we were going to have a "book list for the resistance" I'd say this one is crucial. Also, maybe think of these as prerequisites, I think everyone should read or listen to The Warmth of Other Suns and Hillbilly Elegy because, in my opinion, they describe the past in way that informs the present social strife that Trump used to divide and conquer to win the Republican primary and general elections. If the Left is going to have a political answer in 2 and 4yrs for the people who either declined to vote altogether or who voted Trump, we have to understand and have compassion for their plight.

I understand the emotional need to point the finger at Trump voters and say "Ha! You get what you voted for!" when their healthcare is taken away or their jobs are automated without a proper safety net, but that's such a vindictive and shortsighted outlook that isn't going to help with coalition building.

Edit: the hardcover edition of Nothing is True and Everything is Possible is in stock

Whew, okay. Pulled out my actual computer to answer this.
So, a lot of what I could recommend isn't short stuff you could read in an afternoon because 1. it's depressing as fuck, and 2. it's likely heavy with the sheer volume of references wherein at least one book attempts to bludgeon you with the facts that "this was depressing as fuck." Frequent breaks or alternating history-related books with fiction/poetry/other topics is rather recommended from my experience. Can't remember if I got onto this topic through Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States or Loewen's Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong or just some random book found in the library.

The very clean cut, textbook Wikipedia definition of "sundown town", aka "Don't let the sun set (down) on you here.", (Ref: BlackThen.com), is:
> sometimes known as sunset towns or gray towns, are all-white municipalities or neighborhoods in the United States that practice a form of segregation by enforcing restrictions excluding people of other races via some combination of discriminatory local laws, intimidation, and violence.

For my intro into the subject however, read Buried in the Bitter Waters: The Hidden History of Racial Cleansing in America. This is a very emotionally draining, mentally exhausting book though, frequently with lists of atrocities in paragraph form. I think it's an important read, one which frankly should've been covered my senior year of highschool or so, but it's a difficult one. Also on my reading list is The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration which is a surprising and sneakily hopeful title for such a depressing topic, so only guessing the narration may be somewhat more accessible.

Also, 'cause I totally didn't run to my kindle app to list out titles before fully reading your post, here's some below, and relisted one above, by timeline placement, best as can be figured. These might not be the best on each topic, but they're the ones available to my budget at the time and some are still on my reading list.

The Fires of Jubilee: Nat Turner's Fierce Rebellion

• Timeline 1831
  
  Buried in the Bitter Waters: The Hidden History of Racial Cleansing in America
  
• Timeline post-Civil War in 1865 through the 1920's, with thousands of towns still containing obvious racial divides (see "wrong side of the tracks", etc) and sometimes still utilizing laws to push black folks out of neighborhoods today.
  
  The Mis-Education of the Negro
  
• 1933, please see the book later down the list "Brainwashed"
  
  At the Dark End of the Street: A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power
  
• 1944 through the 1970's
  
  Assata
  
• 1960's through 1970's, about Black Panther Assata Shakur (aka JoAnne Chesimard)
  
  Revolutionary Suicide
  
• 1940's through late 1980's, about Huey P. Newton, Black Panther co-founder.
  
  Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion
  
• 1980's through ?
  
  Sister Outsider
  
• 1980's essays on sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia, and class
  
  See also:
  
  Black Street Speech: Its History, Structure, and Survival
  
  Women, Race, & Class by Angela Y. Davis
  
• "A powerful study of the women's liberation movement in the U.S., from abolitionist days to the present, that demonstrates how it has always been hampered by the racist and classist biases of its leaders."
  
  Black Feminist Thought
  
• Supposedly there's a correct and incorrect version of this with severely cut or modified chapters, but not sure which is which.
  
  Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations by Bell Hooks
  
• Contemporary essays
  
  Brainwashed: Challenging the Myth of Black Inferiority
  
• from slavery through today, how black people have been taught they're inferior to the point they help drag themselves and each other down
  
  The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
  
• Supposed to be really good, haven't read this yet.
  
  
  
  
  

>because the rapid demographic shifts from rural to urban areas would have threatened the Republicans' majority in the House.

Ahhh, the Great Migration. Anytime I hear mention of it I feel compelled to recommend The Warmth of Other Suns. It's a fantastic book that's well worth the read.

Be forewarned though; don't read this if you don't want to end up empathizing with black folk, because it'll getcha in the feels.

I'm traditionally more into literary fiction, but I've been exploring non-fiction recently.

Currently Reading: 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus

Recently Finished: The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration and Margaret Atwood's MaddAddam Trilogy

Next on the List: Either Guns Germs and Steel or Devil in the White City. Haven't decided yet

Not the OP, but The Warmth of Other Suns is a really good book about the era of mass black migration from the South to the North and West between WWI and the 1970s. Lots about Jim Crow in the South but also about the less-obvious racism in their new homes.

The challenge before us is very difficult, it is not easy to lift up a group of people that has been historically disenfranchised. But consider this, we had slavery for a longer period of time than we've had our independence. We have statistics, and we have the interpretation of statistics. Information helps us, but we need to look at the root causes of those statistics.

Why are more black Americans incarcerated? Why are more of them living in poverty? Is it biological? Or was it because of what we've done?

I highly suggest any material written Ta-Nehisi Coates to better understand and take in that broad view of how American and her citizens came to be.

> People are colorless and genderless as far as laws are concerned.

Statistically this is not true. Your color and gender have an astounding affect on the unique challenges you face. And we all face our own challenges, but that does not diminish the challenges others face. I highly suggest The Warmth of Other Suns and Crabgrass Frontier to better understand how policy and government has affected us.

Racism and bigotry is very, very alive today. We're not even seventy years out from the civil rights movement. 1960 was only 57 years ago. You can talk with people that lived with segregation, lived during periods of more lynching. We have to come to terms with this and address the harm we've done.

And yes it will be difficult, I don't have all the solutions to fix the problem, but being aware of our history helps us identify the wounds we need to treat. Listen to some James Baldwin, he says so much so well.

Oh yeah you'll definitely have that in Waukesha, you're literally in one of the destination counties of "white flight"ers from the 40's and 50's, after southern blacks started coming up here looking for work. (Called the "WOW" counties anectodally - Washington, Ozaukee, Waukesha). Typically white, growing older, vote R, listen to talk radio, commute all the way to Milwaukee to work - if they have to. They talk about how much of a pity it is how "downhill" and "urban" (read: black) Milwaukee has gotten, considering how "nice" (white) it was in the mid 20th century. Despite the fact that there are parts of the city that are thriving and modernizing, and attracting young people to live there.

​

Source: my boomer parents live in Washington Co, and my grandma has lived in Ozaukee Co since the 50's. They are the exact epitome of all of these things.

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Edit: this book has been on my to-read list for a while, I believe it covers some of these very concepts. Or just look up the racial history of Milwaukee to understand why they probably feel uncomfortable in Waukesha.

> After the war, the Great Migration caused thousands to leave their homes for a better life in the North and in Canada.

One of the best books I've read on the Great Migration is The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson. A wonderful read, it's about three individuals who do just as you say, move to find a better life away from the oppression of Jim Crow.

edit: accidentally some words

> hundred year old talking points

Official redlining didn't start until 1934. Other forms of discrimination and segregation existed during that same time period. For example, the realtors association of Grosse Pointe had an informal racial point system until the 1960s. This is hardly a hundred-year-old issue. Elderly people alive today spent a good portion of their lives living under these conditions. There are plenty of excellent, thoroughly-sourced books on the subject. Enjoy!

1 2 3 4

p.s. Wealth may not last for three generations, but that doesn't necessarily mean that poverty (and its effect) also does not last for three generations. It's much easier to lose wealth than it is to gain it in the first place.

Neither the north nor the south did anything for some time. The Warmth of Other Suns is an AMAZING book about southern blacks moving north and west during the first half of the 20th century, and just generally depicts how terrible it was for them even decades after emancipation.

I'd recommend these books to anyone in this conversation:

• 1861: Civil War Awakening by Adam Goodheart
  
  
• The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration

The Warmth of Other Suns is about the migration Northeast and to the Midwest to escape the Jim Crow laws of the South.

And early on, NYC absolutely had slaves, freed slaves and indentured servants. Look up the NYC Slave Revolt of 1741.

Black people are concentrated in urban areas in the US as a direct consequence of discriminatory mortgage lending and realty practices in the mid 20th century that forced them into de-facto segregated neighborhoods.

Now, granted. Dems have taken advantage of that concentration to use these folks as a power base constituency. But those neighborhood circumstances were not created for political advantage. They were created to marginalize black people as much as possible during the period now known as the Great Migration when so many were fleeing the Jim Crow south.

Sources:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration https://www.amazon.com/dp/0679763880/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_vlJkDbTN6HPGS

Classism definitely exists, but like everything else doesn't exist in a bubble. Class, race, gender, sex, age...these things all intersect and interact in ways that make social realities for people. Academics (which I am not) have different opinions about the extent to which one is more important than another. I would say yes, historically it has been far more difficult for a person of color to move up in American society and yes, that is still the case today. But I'm just a guy on reddit who likes to read. If you're interested in this stuff here's where I started: The Color of Law, New Jim Crow, Ta-Nehisi Coates, the autobiography of Malcolm X, The Warmth of Other Suns