Isabel Wilkerson

Isabel Wilkerson Instagram – Ecstatic at the news that the Los Angeles Times has named The Warmth of Other Suns to its list of the 30 Best Nonfiction Books of the Last 30 Years, ranking it No. 1.
Honored to be in the company of so many authors whose work I have admired — from Joan Didion and Ta-Nehisi Coates, to Erik Larson and Michelle Alexander, to Jesmyn Ward and Stephen King.
More than anything, I am thrilled that this further trains a light on the Great Migration, on the courage of the six million souls who acted upon their dreams and on the indelible mark this leaderless movement left on this country and the world.
Here are but a few of the children of the Great Migration who reshaped an entire sphere of our society — the music we listen to. Jazz, Motown, R&B, Hip-Hop and the Blues (which inspired rock ‘n’ roll) are quintessentially American creations that grew out of the transfer of black culture from the South to the North during the Great Migration.
Many household names — like Diana Ross (AL to Detroit) and Prince (LA to Minneapolis) — might not have existed had their parents not fled Jim Crow and married people they would otherwise not have met.
Some artists, like Muddy Waters (MS to Chicago), left the South themselves. Others went north with their parents — like Ella Fitzgerald (VA to Yonkers, NY), Thelonious Monk (NC to NYC), Aretha Franklin (TN to Detroit), and Martha Reeves and the Vandellas (AL to Detroit), whose 1964 song “Dancing in the Street” became an anthem of the Great Migration. It infectiously celebrates the receiving stations of the Migration: “Philadelphia, P-A….Baltimore and D-C now…. Can’t forget the Motor City….”
It is hard, and it is humbling, to even try to imagine a world without their having graced this planet.
Grateful to the Los Angeles Times for including the book on this list and to every single reader of The Warmth of Other Suns. | Posted on 18/Apr/2025 02:20:51