I will never forget taking my firstborn book, The Warmth of Other Suns, out into the world and hearing the most startling endorsement it has ever received. On a community radio show in NYC, we were soberly discussing the impact of the Great Migration and the fortitude of the ancestors when an enthusiastic reader who happened to be a minister cut to the chase: “This book is so important, you have to read it,” he told listeners. “And if you can’t afford to buy the book,” he said, “steal the book.” It may have been metaphorical, but he had made his point. Around the same time, I went to Chicago on book tour and excitedly went into what was then the main book store in Hyde Park — Borders Books on 53rd Street — and was anxious to see my newborn on the shelf. I looked all over for it in Nonfiction and in History and in African-American Studies. I couldn’t find it anywhere and started to get worried that it wasn’t getting the placement it should have gotten. I went to the front desk to ask about it. “Oh that book,” the clerk said. “We had to put it behind the counter. It was walking out on its own.” And so there it was next to Jay Z’s memoir and Terry McMillan’s newest best seller and another of John Grisham’s blockbusters. Never in a million years would I have expected a deeply researched work of narrative nonfiction to need to be locked behind the counter with those commercial heavyweights. Now, 14 years later, The Warmth of Other Suns is available for a limited time for $1.99 on Amazon in Kindle format to kick off Black History Month. Thrilled for every new reader who will now have even more chances to know Ida Mae, Robert and George and the courage of the people of the Great Migration. May we come to a deeper appreciation of our country’s history this month because Black History is American History. _______________ The first photo is of me at the indie bookstore, Books Are Magic, in Brooklyn, where I signed Warmth and Caste for the holidays, in addition to signings at McNally Jackson, Barnes & Noble, and Cafe Con Libros. #thewarmthofothersuns #castetheoriginsofourdiscontents #blackhistorymonth #history
I will never forget taking my firstborn book, The Warmth of Other Suns, out into the world and hearing the most startling endorsement it has ever received. On a community radio show in NYC, we were soberly discussing the impact of the Great Migration and the fortitude of the ancestors when an enthusiastic reader who happened to be a minister cut to the chase: “This book is so important, you have to read it,” he told listeners. “And if you can’t afford to buy the book,” he said, “steal the book.” It may have been metaphorical, but he had made his point. Around the same time, I went to Chicago on book tour and excitedly went into what was then the main book store in Hyde Park — Borders Books on 53rd Street — and was anxious to see my newborn on the shelf. I looked all over for it in Nonfiction and in History and in African-American Studies. I couldn’t find it anywhere and started to get worried that it wasn’t getting the placement it should have gotten. I went to the front desk to ask about it. “Oh that book,” the clerk said. “We had to put it behind the counter. It was walking out on its own.” And so there it was next to Jay Z’s memoir and Terry McMillan’s newest best seller and another of John Grisham’s blockbusters. Never in a million years would I have expected a deeply researched work of narrative nonfiction to need to be locked behind the counter with those commercial heavyweights. Now, 14 years later, The Warmth of Other Suns is available for a limited time for $1.99 on Amazon in Kindle format to kick off Black History Month. Thrilled for every new reader who will now have even more chances to know Ida Mae, Robert and George and the courage of the people of the Great Migration. May we come to a deeper appreciation of our country’s history this month because Black History is American History. _______________ The first photo is of me at the indie bookstore, Books Are Magic, in Brooklyn, where I signed Warmth and Caste for the holidays, in addition to signings at McNally Jackson, Barnes & Noble, and Cafe Con Libros. #thewarmthofothersuns #castetheoriginsofourdiscontents #blackhistorymonth #history
I will never forget taking my firstborn book, The Warmth of Other Suns, out into the world and hearing the most startling endorsement it has ever received. On a community radio show in NYC, we were soberly discussing the impact of the Great Migration and the fortitude of the ancestors when an enthusiastic reader who happened to be a minister cut to the chase: “This book is so important, you have to read it,” he told listeners. “And if you can’t afford to buy the book,” he said, “steal the book.” It may have been metaphorical, but he had made his point. Around the same time, I went to Chicago on book tour and excitedly went into what was then the main book store in Hyde Park — Borders Books on 53rd Street — and was anxious to see my newborn on the shelf. I looked all over for it in Nonfiction and in History and in African-American Studies. I couldn’t find it anywhere and started to get worried that it wasn’t getting the placement it should have gotten. I went to the front desk to ask about it. “Oh that book,” the clerk said. “We had to put it behind the counter. It was walking out on its own.” And so there it was next to Jay Z’s memoir and Terry McMillan’s newest best seller and another of John Grisham’s blockbusters. Never in a million years would I have expected a deeply researched work of narrative nonfiction to need to be locked behind the counter with those commercial heavyweights. Now, 14 years later, The Warmth of Other Suns is available for a limited time for $1.99 on Amazon in Kindle format to kick off Black History Month. Thrilled for every new reader who will now have even more chances to know Ida Mae, Robert and George and the courage of the people of the Great Migration. May we come to a deeper appreciation of our country’s history this month because Black History is American History. _______________ The first photo is of me at the indie bookstore, Books Are Magic, in Brooklyn, where I signed Warmth and Caste for the holidays, in addition to signings at McNally Jackson, Barnes & Noble, and Cafe Con Libros. #thewarmthofothersuns #castetheoriginsofourdiscontents #blackhistorymonth #history
I will never forget taking my firstborn book, The Warmth of Other Suns, out into the world and hearing the most startling endorsement it has ever received. On a community radio show in NYC, we were soberly discussing the impact of the Great Migration and the fortitude of the ancestors when an enthusiastic reader who happened to be a minister cut to the chase: “This book is so important, you have to read it,” he told listeners. “And if you can’t afford to buy the book,” he said, “steal the book.” It may have been metaphorical, but he had made his point. Around the same time, I went to Chicago on book tour and excitedly went into what was then the main book store in Hyde Park — Borders Books on 53rd Street — and was anxious to see my newborn on the shelf. I looked all over for it in Nonfiction and in History and in African-American Studies. I couldn’t find it anywhere and started to get worried that it wasn’t getting the placement it should have gotten. I went to the front desk to ask about it. “Oh that book,” the clerk said. “We had to put it behind the counter. It was walking out on its own.” And so there it was next to Jay Z’s memoir and Terry McMillan’s newest best seller and another of John Grisham’s blockbusters. Never in a million years would I have expected a deeply researched work of narrative nonfiction to need to be locked behind the counter with those commercial heavyweights. Now, 14 years later, The Warmth of Other Suns is available for a limited time for $1.99 on Amazon in Kindle format to kick off Black History Month. Thrilled for every new reader who will now have even more chances to know Ida Mae, Robert and George and the courage of the people of the Great Migration. May we come to a deeper appreciation of our country’s history this month because Black History is American History. _______________ The first photo is of me at the indie bookstore, Books Are Magic, in Brooklyn, where I signed Warmth and Caste for the holidays, in addition to signings at McNally Jackson, Barnes & Noble, and Cafe Con Libros. #thewarmthofothersuns #castetheoriginsofourdiscontents #blackhistorymonth #history
I will never forget taking my firstborn book, The Warmth of Other Suns, out into the world and hearing the most startling endorsement it has ever received. On a community radio show in NYC, we were soberly discussing the impact of the Great Migration and the fortitude of the ancestors when an enthusiastic reader who happened to be a minister cut to the chase: “This book is so important, you have to read it,” he told listeners. “And if you can’t afford to buy the book,” he said, “steal the book.” It may have been metaphorical, but he had made his point. Around the same time, I went to Chicago on book tour and excitedly went into what was then the main book store in Hyde Park — Borders Books on 53rd Street — and was anxious to see my newborn on the shelf. I looked all over for it in Nonfiction and in History and in African-American Studies. I couldn’t find it anywhere and started to get worried that it wasn’t getting the placement it should have gotten. I went to the front desk to ask about it. “Oh that book,” the clerk said. “We had to put it behind the counter. It was walking out on its own.” And so there it was next to Jay Z’s memoir and Terry McMillan’s newest best seller and another of John Grisham’s blockbusters. Never in a million years would I have expected a deeply researched work of narrative nonfiction to need to be locked behind the counter with those commercial heavyweights. Now, 14 years later, The Warmth of Other Suns is available for a limited time for $1.99 on Amazon in Kindle format to kick off Black History Month. Thrilled for every new reader who will now have even more chances to know Ida Mae, Robert and George and the courage of the people of the Great Migration. May we come to a deeper appreciation of our country’s history this month because Black History is American History. _______________ The first photo is of me at the indie bookstore, Books Are Magic, in Brooklyn, where I signed Warmth and Caste for the holidays, in addition to signings at McNally Jackson, Barnes & Noble, and Cafe Con Libros. #thewarmthofothersuns #castetheoriginsofourdiscontents #blackhistorymonth #history
In this fraught moment where democracy is in the balance, it is both chilling and clarifying to realize that, 90 years ago exactly, the Nazis were actually studying the United States and its treatment of nonwhite and Indigenous people, and were debating what they could apply for themselves as they honed their plans against Jews in Europe. In June 1934, they convened a pivotal meeting to start work on what would become the Nuremberg Laws that would define who would be designated as Jewish and who could marry whom on that basis. They did not need Americans or anyone else to learn how to hate, but they sent researchers to the United States to study how the U.S. had defined by fractions of blood what race a person was designated to be and the elaborate ways the country had found to officially outlaw intermarriage. When Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents was first released, people were stopped in their tracks when they got to Chapter 8. And people who hadn’t read it but merely caught a reference on social media resisted the very idea of our country having anything whatsoever to do with the Nazis. But this history and the Nazi admiration of American race law was gut-wrenchingly documented by the Nazis themselves. Shockingly, the record shows, the Nazis rejected some aspects of Jim Crow as too extreme. Now, in the four years since Caste made its way out into the world, spending much of its time on the bestsellers list, current events have tragically affirmed the connections it explores between our country and Nazi Germany, and many Americans have now come to recognize this as a grievous part of our history. The questions are, as they have always been: What are we going to learn from what happened in Germany 90 years ago? What are we going to do to keep those parallels in the past? What are we going to do to prevent the authoritarian regimes of the past — both the Nazis and the Jim Crow culture that they studied — from becoming our future? Swipe to the last slide to see one of the most cited passages in all of Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, from page 82, as it’s been reposted across the internet.
In this fraught moment where democracy is in the balance, it is both chilling and clarifying to realize that, 90 years ago exactly, the Nazis were actually studying the United States and its treatment of nonwhite and Indigenous people, and were debating what they could apply for themselves as they honed their plans against Jews in Europe. In June 1934, they convened a pivotal meeting to start work on what would become the Nuremberg Laws that would define who would be designated as Jewish and who could marry whom on that basis. They did not need Americans or anyone else to learn how to hate, but they sent researchers to the United States to study how the U.S. had defined by fractions of blood what race a person was designated to be and the elaborate ways the country had found to officially outlaw intermarriage. When Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents was first released, people were stopped in their tracks when they got to Chapter 8. And people who hadn’t read it but merely caught a reference on social media resisted the very idea of our country having anything whatsoever to do with the Nazis. But this history and the Nazi admiration of American race law was gut-wrenchingly documented by the Nazis themselves. Shockingly, the record shows, the Nazis rejected some aspects of Jim Crow as too extreme. Now, in the four years since Caste made its way out into the world, spending much of its time on the bestsellers list, current events have tragically affirmed the connections it explores between our country and Nazi Germany, and many Americans have now come to recognize this as a grievous part of our history. The questions are, as they have always been: What are we going to learn from what happened in Germany 90 years ago? What are we going to do to keep those parallels in the past? What are we going to do to prevent the authoritarian regimes of the past — both the Nazis and the Jim Crow culture that they studied — from becoming our future? Swipe to the last slide to see one of the most cited passages in all of Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, from page 82, as it’s been reposted across the internet.
In this fraught moment where democracy is in the balance, it is both chilling and clarifying to realize that, 90 years ago exactly, the Nazis were actually studying the United States and its treatment of nonwhite and Indigenous people, and were debating what they could apply for themselves as they honed their plans against Jews in Europe. In June 1934, they convened a pivotal meeting to start work on what would become the Nuremberg Laws that would define who would be designated as Jewish and who could marry whom on that basis. They did not need Americans or anyone else to learn how to hate, but they sent researchers to the United States to study how the U.S. had defined by fractions of blood what race a person was designated to be and the elaborate ways the country had found to officially outlaw intermarriage. When Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents was first released, people were stopped in their tracks when they got to Chapter 8. And people who hadn’t read it but merely caught a reference on social media resisted the very idea of our country having anything whatsoever to do with the Nazis. But this history and the Nazi admiration of American race law was gut-wrenchingly documented by the Nazis themselves. Shockingly, the record shows, the Nazis rejected some aspects of Jim Crow as too extreme. Now, in the four years since Caste made its way out into the world, spending much of its time on the bestsellers list, current events have tragically affirmed the connections it explores between our country and Nazi Germany, and many Americans have now come to recognize this as a grievous part of our history. The questions are, as they have always been: What are we going to learn from what happened in Germany 90 years ago? What are we going to do to keep those parallels in the past? What are we going to do to prevent the authoritarian regimes of the past — both the Nazis and the Jim Crow culture that they studied — from becoming our future? Swipe to the last slide to see one of the most cited passages in all of Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, from page 82, as it’s been reposted across the internet.
In this fraught moment where democracy is in the balance, it is both chilling and clarifying to realize that, 90 years ago exactly, the Nazis were actually studying the United States and its treatment of nonwhite and Indigenous people, and were debating what they could apply for themselves as they honed their plans against Jews in Europe. In June 1934, they convened a pivotal meeting to start work on what would become the Nuremberg Laws that would define who would be designated as Jewish and who could marry whom on that basis. They did not need Americans or anyone else to learn how to hate, but they sent researchers to the United States to study how the U.S. had defined by fractions of blood what race a person was designated to be and the elaborate ways the country had found to officially outlaw intermarriage. When Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents was first released, people were stopped in their tracks when they got to Chapter 8. And people who hadn’t read it but merely caught a reference on social media resisted the very idea of our country having anything whatsoever to do with the Nazis. But this history and the Nazi admiration of American race law was gut-wrenchingly documented by the Nazis themselves. Shockingly, the record shows, the Nazis rejected some aspects of Jim Crow as too extreme. Now, in the four years since Caste made its way out into the world, spending much of its time on the bestsellers list, current events have tragically affirmed the connections it explores between our country and Nazi Germany, and many Americans have now come to recognize this as a grievous part of our history. The questions are, as they have always been: What are we going to learn from what happened in Germany 90 years ago? What are we going to do to keep those parallels in the past? What are we going to do to prevent the authoritarian regimes of the past — both the Nazis and the Jim Crow culture that they studied — from becoming our future? Swipe to the last slide to see one of the most cited passages in all of Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, from page 82, as it’s been reposted across the internet.
In this fraught moment where democracy is in the balance, it is both chilling and clarifying to realize that, 90 years ago exactly, the Nazis were actually studying the United States and its treatment of nonwhite and Indigenous people, and were debating what they could apply for themselves as they honed their plans against Jews in Europe. In June 1934, they convened a pivotal meeting to start work on what would become the Nuremberg Laws that would define who would be designated as Jewish and who could marry whom on that basis. They did not need Americans or anyone else to learn how to hate, but they sent researchers to the United States to study how the U.S. had defined by fractions of blood what race a person was designated to be and the elaborate ways the country had found to officially outlaw intermarriage. When Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents was first released, people were stopped in their tracks when they got to Chapter 8. And people who hadn’t read it but merely caught a reference on social media resisted the very idea of our country having anything whatsoever to do with the Nazis. But this history and the Nazi admiration of American race law was gut-wrenchingly documented by the Nazis themselves. Shockingly, the record shows, the Nazis rejected some aspects of Jim Crow as too extreme. Now, in the four years since Caste made its way out into the world, spending much of its time on the bestsellers list, current events have tragically affirmed the connections it explores between our country and Nazi Germany, and many Americans have now come to recognize this as a grievous part of our history. The questions are, as they have always been: What are we going to learn from what happened in Germany 90 years ago? What are we going to do to keep those parallels in the past? What are we going to do to prevent the authoritarian regimes of the past — both the Nazis and the Jim Crow culture that they studied — from becoming our future? Swipe to the last slide to see one of the most cited passages in all of Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, from page 82, as it’s been reposted across the internet.
In this fraught moment where democracy is in the balance, it is both chilling and clarifying to realize that, 90 years ago exactly, the Nazis were actually studying the United States and its treatment of nonwhite and Indigenous people, and were debating what they could apply for themselves as they honed their plans against Jews in Europe. In June 1934, they convened a pivotal meeting to start work on what would become the Nuremberg Laws that would define who would be designated as Jewish and who could marry whom on that basis. They did not need Americans or anyone else to learn how to hate, but they sent researchers to the United States to study how the U.S. had defined by fractions of blood what race a person was designated to be and the elaborate ways the country had found to officially outlaw intermarriage. When Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents was first released, people were stopped in their tracks when they got to Chapter 8. And people who hadn’t read it but merely caught a reference on social media resisted the very idea of our country having anything whatsoever to do with the Nazis. But this history and the Nazi admiration of American race law was gut-wrenchingly documented by the Nazis themselves. Shockingly, the record shows, the Nazis rejected some aspects of Jim Crow as too extreme. Now, in the four years since Caste made its way out into the world, spending much of its time on the bestsellers list, current events have tragically affirmed the connections it explores between our country and Nazi Germany, and many Americans have now come to recognize this as a grievous part of our history. The questions are, as they have always been: What are we going to learn from what happened in Germany 90 years ago? What are we going to do to keep those parallels in the past? What are we going to do to prevent the authoritarian regimes of the past — both the Nazis and the Jim Crow culture that they studied — from becoming our future? Swipe to the last slide to see one of the most cited passages in all of Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, from page 82, as it’s been reposted across the internet.
In this fraught moment where democracy is in the balance, it is both chilling and clarifying to realize that, 90 years ago exactly, the Nazis were actually studying the United States and its treatment of nonwhite and Indigenous people, and were debating what they could apply for themselves as they honed their plans against Jews in Europe. In June 1934, they convened a pivotal meeting to start work on what would become the Nuremberg Laws that would define who would be designated as Jewish and who could marry whom on that basis. They did not need Americans or anyone else to learn how to hate, but they sent researchers to the United States to study how the U.S. had defined by fractions of blood what race a person was designated to be and the elaborate ways the country had found to officially outlaw intermarriage. When Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents was first released, people were stopped in their tracks when they got to Chapter 8. And people who hadn’t read it but merely caught a reference on social media resisted the very idea of our country having anything whatsoever to do with the Nazis. But this history and the Nazi admiration of American race law was gut-wrenchingly documented by the Nazis themselves. Shockingly, the record shows, the Nazis rejected some aspects of Jim Crow as too extreme. Now, in the four years since Caste made its way out into the world, spending much of its time on the bestsellers list, current events have tragically affirmed the connections it explores between our country and Nazi Germany, and many Americans have now come to recognize this as a grievous part of our history. The questions are, as they have always been: What are we going to learn from what happened in Germany 90 years ago? What are we going to do to keep those parallels in the past? What are we going to do to prevent the authoritarian regimes of the past — both the Nazis and the Jim Crow culture that they studied — from becoming our future? Swipe to the last slide to see one of the most cited passages in all of Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, from page 82, as it’s been reposted across the internet.
In this fraught moment where democracy is in the balance, it is both chilling and clarifying to realize that, 90 years ago exactly, the Nazis were actually studying the United States and its treatment of nonwhite and Indigenous people, and were debating what they could apply for themselves as they honed their plans against Jews in Europe. In June 1934, they convened a pivotal meeting to start work on what would become the Nuremberg Laws that would define who would be designated as Jewish and who could marry whom on that basis. They did not need Americans or anyone else to learn how to hate, but they sent researchers to the United States to study how the U.S. had defined by fractions of blood what race a person was designated to be and the elaborate ways the country had found to officially outlaw intermarriage. When Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents was first released, people were stopped in their tracks when they got to Chapter 8. And people who hadn’t read it but merely caught a reference on social media resisted the very idea of our country having anything whatsoever to do with the Nazis. But this history and the Nazi admiration of American race law was gut-wrenchingly documented by the Nazis themselves. Shockingly, the record shows, the Nazis rejected some aspects of Jim Crow as too extreme. Now, in the four years since Caste made its way out into the world, spending much of its time on the bestsellers list, current events have tragically affirmed the connections it explores between our country and Nazi Germany, and many Americans have now come to recognize this as a grievous part of our history. The questions are, as they have always been: What are we going to learn from what happened in Germany 90 years ago? What are we going to do to keep those parallels in the past? What are we going to do to prevent the authoritarian regimes of the past — both the Nazis and the Jim Crow culture that they studied — from becoming our future? Swipe to the last slide to see one of the most cited passages in all of Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, from page 82, as it’s been reposted across the internet.
In this fraught moment where democracy is in the balance, it is both chilling and clarifying to realize that, 90 years ago exactly, the Nazis were actually studying the United States and its treatment of nonwhite and Indigenous people, and were debating what they could apply for themselves as they honed their plans against Jews in Europe. In June 1934, they convened a pivotal meeting to start work on what would become the Nuremberg Laws that would define who would be designated as Jewish and who could marry whom on that basis. They did not need Americans or anyone else to learn how to hate, but they sent researchers to the United States to study how the U.S. had defined by fractions of blood what race a person was designated to be and the elaborate ways the country had found to officially outlaw intermarriage. When Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents was first released, people were stopped in their tracks when they got to Chapter 8. And people who hadn’t read it but merely caught a reference on social media resisted the very idea of our country having anything whatsoever to do with the Nazis. But this history and the Nazi admiration of American race law was gut-wrenchingly documented by the Nazis themselves. Shockingly, the record shows, the Nazis rejected some aspects of Jim Crow as too extreme. Now, in the four years since Caste made its way out into the world, spending much of its time on the bestsellers list, current events have tragically affirmed the connections it explores between our country and Nazi Germany, and many Americans have now come to recognize this as a grievous part of our history. The questions are, as they have always been: What are we going to learn from what happened in Germany 90 years ago? What are we going to do to keep those parallels in the past? What are we going to do to prevent the authoritarian regimes of the past — both the Nazis and the Jim Crow culture that they studied — from becoming our future? Swipe to the last slide to see one of the most cited passages in all of Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, from page 82, as it’s been reposted across the internet.
In this fraught moment where democracy is in the balance, it is both chilling and clarifying to realize that, 90 years ago exactly, the Nazis were actually studying the United States and its treatment of nonwhite and Indigenous people, and were debating what they could apply for themselves as they honed their plans against Jews in Europe. In June 1934, they convened a pivotal meeting to start work on what would become the Nuremberg Laws that would define who would be designated as Jewish and who could marry whom on that basis. They did not need Americans or anyone else to learn how to hate, but they sent researchers to the United States to study how the U.S. had defined by fractions of blood what race a person was designated to be and the elaborate ways the country had found to officially outlaw intermarriage. When Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents was first released, people were stopped in their tracks when they got to Chapter 8. And people who hadn’t read it but merely caught a reference on social media resisted the very idea of our country having anything whatsoever to do with the Nazis. But this history and the Nazi admiration of American race law was gut-wrenchingly documented by the Nazis themselves. Shockingly, the record shows, the Nazis rejected some aspects of Jim Crow as too extreme. Now, in the four years since Caste made its way out into the world, spending much of its time on the bestsellers list, current events have tragically affirmed the connections it explores between our country and Nazi Germany, and many Americans have now come to recognize this as a grievous part of our history. The questions are, as they have always been: What are we going to learn from what happened in Germany 90 years ago? What are we going to do to keep those parallels in the past? What are we going to do to prevent the authoritarian regimes of the past — both the Nazis and the Jim Crow culture that they studied — from becoming our future? Swipe to the last slide to see one of the most cited passages in all of Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, from page 82, as it’s been reposted across the internet.
Absolutely gobsmacked and over the moon! What a tribute to the people of the Great Migration and to this watershed epic in our country’s history, at a time when we need history more than ever. My heart is bursting with gratitude to everyone who nominated The Warmth of Other Suns to The New York Times’ list of the Best Books of the 21st Century (thus far) and who positioned it near the very top, at No. 2. It’s been electrifying to see literature take center stage in our culture this week with the daily unfurling of the list. This honor, to me, speaks to the beauty and power of narrative nonfiction. It’s a genre that plunges you into the lives of real people you otherwise would not know and is the closest you may ever come to “being” another person. It takes years and years of research and immersion to create a book like Warmth, to amass and distill mountains of fact and lived experience into literature that will keep you turning the page. I so appreciate critic Dwight Garner’s generous description: “Wilkerson’s intimate, stirring, meticulously researched and myth-dispelling book, which details the Great Migration of Black Americans from South to North and West from 1915 to 1970, is the most vital and compulsively readable work of history in recent memory….” At times like this, I think back with immense love and admiration for Ida Mae Brandon Gladney, George Swanson Starling and Dr. Robert Pershing Foster, who entrusted me with their lives and recollections not knowing the outcome. I so wish they could have lived to see this day and to know that their trials and triumphs have captivated so many for so long. Deepest gratitude to everyone. #bestbooks
Absolutely gobsmacked and over the moon! What a tribute to the people of the Great Migration and to this watershed epic in our country’s history, at a time when we need history more than ever. My heart is bursting with gratitude to everyone who nominated The Warmth of Other Suns to The New York Times’ list of the Best Books of the 21st Century (thus far) and who positioned it near the very top, at No. 2. It’s been electrifying to see literature take center stage in our culture this week with the daily unfurling of the list. This honor, to me, speaks to the beauty and power of narrative nonfiction. It’s a genre that plunges you into the lives of real people you otherwise would not know and is the closest you may ever come to “being” another person. It takes years and years of research and immersion to create a book like Warmth, to amass and distill mountains of fact and lived experience into literature that will keep you turning the page. I so appreciate critic Dwight Garner’s generous description: “Wilkerson’s intimate, stirring, meticulously researched and myth-dispelling book, which details the Great Migration of Black Americans from South to North and West from 1915 to 1970, is the most vital and compulsively readable work of history in recent memory….” At times like this, I think back with immense love and admiration for Ida Mae Brandon Gladney, George Swanson Starling and Dr. Robert Pershing Foster, who entrusted me with their lives and recollections not knowing the outcome. I so wish they could have lived to see this day and to know that their trials and triumphs have captivated so many for so long. Deepest gratitude to everyone. #bestbooks
Absolutely gobsmacked and over the moon! What a tribute to the people of the Great Migration and to this watershed epic in our country’s history, at a time when we need history more than ever. My heart is bursting with gratitude to everyone who nominated The Warmth of Other Suns to The New York Times’ list of the Best Books of the 21st Century (thus far) and who positioned it near the very top, at No. 2. It’s been electrifying to see literature take center stage in our culture this week with the daily unfurling of the list. This honor, to me, speaks to the beauty and power of narrative nonfiction. It’s a genre that plunges you into the lives of real people you otherwise would not know and is the closest you may ever come to “being” another person. It takes years and years of research and immersion to create a book like Warmth, to amass and distill mountains of fact and lived experience into literature that will keep you turning the page. I so appreciate critic Dwight Garner’s generous description: “Wilkerson’s intimate, stirring, meticulously researched and myth-dispelling book, which details the Great Migration of Black Americans from South to North and West from 1915 to 1970, is the most vital and compulsively readable work of history in recent memory….” At times like this, I think back with immense love and admiration for Ida Mae Brandon Gladney, George Swanson Starling and Dr. Robert Pershing Foster, who entrusted me with their lives and recollections not knowing the outcome. I so wish they could have lived to see this day and to know that their trials and triumphs have captivated so many for so long. Deepest gratitude to everyone. #bestbooks
Absolutely gobsmacked and over the moon! What a tribute to the people of the Great Migration and to this watershed epic in our country’s history, at a time when we need history more than ever. My heart is bursting with gratitude to everyone who nominated The Warmth of Other Suns to The New York Times’ list of the Best Books of the 21st Century (thus far) and who positioned it near the very top, at No. 2. It’s been electrifying to see literature take center stage in our culture this week with the daily unfurling of the list. This honor, to me, speaks to the beauty and power of narrative nonfiction. It’s a genre that plunges you into the lives of real people you otherwise would not know and is the closest you may ever come to “being” another person. It takes years and years of research and immersion to create a book like Warmth, to amass and distill mountains of fact and lived experience into literature that will keep you turning the page. I so appreciate critic Dwight Garner’s generous description: “Wilkerson’s intimate, stirring, meticulously researched and myth-dispelling book, which details the Great Migration of Black Americans from South to North and West from 1915 to 1970, is the most vital and compulsively readable work of history in recent memory….” At times like this, I think back with immense love and admiration for Ida Mae Brandon Gladney, George Swanson Starling and Dr. Robert Pershing Foster, who entrusted me with their lives and recollections not knowing the outcome. I so wish they could have lived to see this day and to know that their trials and triumphs have captivated so many for so long. Deepest gratitude to everyone. #bestbooks
Anytime that violence visits a pregnant mother, it is beyond our comprehension. Thus the tragic case of Ta’Kiya Young, an Ohio mother who was seven months pregnant and fatally shot in her car by police last month, defies explanation in a country that has elevated birth to a national raison d’etre. That is, unless you take into consideration caste. It was the seeming contradiction that propelled me to write the Afterword to the paperback edition of Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, to open people’s eyes to how caste has dangerously played out since the book was first released. There is a throughline from January 6 to mass shootings of people of color to bans on abortion, on books and on affirmative action. They can be seen as connected to the perceived threat to the primacy of those assigned to the dominant caste for most of our country’s history. The 2020 census revealed that the white population, while still the majority, fell for the first time in American history, while other groups rose. Suddenly, rightward policies that had been in the wings for decades, sped forward. Near-total bans on abortion in nearly half the country went into effect, compelling tens of thousands of people to give birth when they otherwise wouldn’t and endangering the lives of those who miscarry. The result: a higher birth rate that favors the dominant group. That’s in part because childbirth is deadlier for Black people. Black mothers are three times more likely to die in childbirth than White mothers and Black babies are twice as likely to die than White babies. And then there is the higher rate of state-sponsored violence against pregnant Black mothers, as caught on video of Ta’Kiya Young, that would be almost unfathomable against a pregnant White mother in our racial hierarchy, as it should be for everyone. There’s much more to this, which is why I spent six months researching the Afterword alone and knew I had to write it, not because it was required or because anyone told me to, but, as with the book itself, circumstances called for it. And I hope people will be inspired to read it to better understand the tragedies we are seeing unfold before our eyes.
Anytime that violence visits a pregnant mother, it is beyond our comprehension. Thus the tragic case of Ta’Kiya Young, an Ohio mother who was seven months pregnant and fatally shot in her car by police last month, defies explanation in a country that has elevated birth to a national raison d’etre. That is, unless you take into consideration caste. It was the seeming contradiction that propelled me to write the Afterword to the paperback edition of Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, to open people’s eyes to how caste has dangerously played out since the book was first released. There is a throughline from January 6 to mass shootings of people of color to bans on abortion, on books and on affirmative action. They can be seen as connected to the perceived threat to the primacy of those assigned to the dominant caste for most of our country’s history. The 2020 census revealed that the white population, while still the majority, fell for the first time in American history, while other groups rose. Suddenly, rightward policies that had been in the wings for decades, sped forward. Near-total bans on abortion in nearly half the country went into effect, compelling tens of thousands of people to give birth when they otherwise wouldn’t and endangering the lives of those who miscarry. The result: a higher birth rate that favors the dominant group. That’s in part because childbirth is deadlier for Black people. Black mothers are three times more likely to die in childbirth than White mothers and Black babies are twice as likely to die than White babies. And then there is the higher rate of state-sponsored violence against pregnant Black mothers, as caught on video of Ta’Kiya Young, that would be almost unfathomable against a pregnant White mother in our racial hierarchy, as it should be for everyone. There’s much more to this, which is why I spent six months researching the Afterword alone and knew I had to write it, not because it was required or because anyone told me to, but, as with the book itself, circumstances called for it. And I hope people will be inspired to read it to better understand the tragedies we are seeing unfold before our eyes.
The joy of a lifetime to share the stage with the “Grandmother of Juneteenth,” the retired Texas schoolteacher and survivor of Jim Crow, Mrs. Opal Lee, who led the movement to make Juneteenth a national holiday, who finally got her wish in 2021 and was awarded the Medal of Freedom at the White House for making it happen. Juneteenth was seared into her memory in childhood. She was 12 years old when a white mob stormed and burned down her family’s home right after they moved into an all-white neighborhood in Ft. Worth, TX. They managed to escaped with their lives. It was June 19, 1939. She has dedicated her life to memorializing the day that the last enslaved African-Americans were finally liberated — two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation and months after the end of the Civil War. She made a historic walk from Ft. Worth to Washington in 2016, at the age of 89, to dramatize its significance. Now, at 97, she has set her sights on a museum dedicated to this history. It was my honor to deliver an address in Ft. Worth in support of the Juneteenth Museum, which is still in the planning stages, and to trade insights with the woman behind the Federal holiday and, one day soon, a place to honor and learn more about it. But the trauma of the razing of her family home has never left her. She looked into what happened to the land her family once owned at 940 East Annie Street in Ft. Worth and discovered that it was in the hands of Habitat for Humanity. She went to them to buy the land back for her family. Habitat for Humanity would not sell it to her. “They gave it to me,” Mrs. Lee said. “God is so good.” Now she has just completed building her new house on the land that her family was forced to flee back on this historic day, 85 years ago, fulfilling her parents’ dream. #juneteenth
The joy of a lifetime to share the stage with the “Grandmother of Juneteenth,” the retired Texas schoolteacher and survivor of Jim Crow, Mrs. Opal Lee, who led the movement to make Juneteenth a national holiday, who finally got her wish in 2021 and was awarded the Medal of Freedom at the White House for making it happen. Juneteenth was seared into her memory in childhood. She was 12 years old when a white mob stormed and burned down her family’s home right after they moved into an all-white neighborhood in Ft. Worth, TX. They managed to escaped with their lives. It was June 19, 1939. She has dedicated her life to memorializing the day that the last enslaved African-Americans were finally liberated — two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation and months after the end of the Civil War. She made a historic walk from Ft. Worth to Washington in 2016, at the age of 89, to dramatize its significance. Now, at 97, she has set her sights on a museum dedicated to this history. It was my honor to deliver an address in Ft. Worth in support of the Juneteenth Museum, which is still in the planning stages, and to trade insights with the woman behind the Federal holiday and, one day soon, a place to honor and learn more about it. But the trauma of the razing of her family home has never left her. She looked into what happened to the land her family once owned at 940 East Annie Street in Ft. Worth and discovered that it was in the hands of Habitat for Humanity. She went to them to buy the land back for her family. Habitat for Humanity would not sell it to her. “They gave it to me,” Mrs. Lee said. “God is so good.” Now she has just completed building her new house on the land that her family was forced to flee back on this historic day, 85 years ago, fulfilling her parents’ dream. #juneteenth
On this day 60 years ago, the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed into law, overturning Jim Crow and prohibiting segregation in schools, in public facilities, in voting. Far beyond only protecting the primary targets of Jim Crow, the Civil Rights Act banned discrimination in employment — not only by race but by gender, religion and national origin, thus extending new rights to far more Americans than those who had led the fight for it. We have come to take this law for granted and to presume that it is etched in stone. But, in the 248-year history of the United States, this is a relatively new protection that went into force within the lifespan of many people who walk among us now. The rights it confers have been in effect for far less time than they were not. And, as we witness the divisions all around us, it is sobering to wonder whether this law could have passed in the current climate we face today. May we always recognize and honor the hard-fought gains we have inherited.
