Bookstagram Buddy Read - THE WARMTH OF OTHER SUNS discussion

Please feel free to discuss the following pages in this thread.

Let’s engage in honest conversations while remaining respectful to all members thoughts and opinions.

This week covers pages 124-237


Kindle
The Awakening through Los Angeles

Audible Audiobook
Chapters 21 through 49

Here are some discussion questions to consider while you are responding to your reading from the week! Of course, you can also write whatever else you want or not use the questions :-)

1) How does the information about the three main tributaries of the Great Migration reshape your knowledge of your own state/city's history?

2) Our three main figures in the book, Ida Mae, George, and Robert (Pershing) all describe clearly the incident or circumstance that crystalized their decision to flee the South. Thinking about these, which, if any, resonated most with you?

3) This book, as a whole, rewrites American history as it is often taught in history books and schools - in this section, is there any information that made you rethink what you were taught or thought you already knew?

4) As Robert traveled to California, he learned that Jim Crow didn't exactly end abruptly at the border as he thought it would. Consider and discuss the qualities and privilege he possessed that allowed him to prevail despite these setbacks.

Loved this section! I taught in the MS delta for 5 years. Most of my students had relatives in Chicago. I remember being surprised that there were connections between specific places like that.
The part where Robert realizes that racism exists outside the south was so hard to read. He thought things would be drastically different once he got to CA and they just weren’t.
I was most surprised by the lengths that states went to keep races apart. The section that described the effort that went into decoupling and moving the colored-only train car and cars that could have mixed groups was bananas.

I hadn’t realized the lengths to which white people had gone (and in such an official manner) to keep Blacks in the South. I always knew history had been whitewashed, but that’s not same as knowing exactly what had been left out.

Diana I agree. I knew there was an exodus, but I didn't realize the extent the laws and policies of the South were crafted to keep people there.

"...the Illinois Central, along with the Atlantic Coast Line and Seaboard Air Line railroads, running between Florida and New York, and the Southern Pacific, connecting Texas and California, had become the historic means of escape, the Overground Railroad for slavery's grandchildren. It hurtled its passengers along the same route and under the same night sky as the Underground Railroad, the secret network of safe houses leading north that had spirited slaves to freedom the previous century." I loved this quote for two reasons:
1. I'll never be afraid of having too many commas in a sentence again.
2. This was a wonderfully written parallel of the escapes black people were forced to make at two different points in history.

A bit behind. The way the author sets up Ida Mae and George's departure (pgs. 165-170) has me anxiously on the edge of my seat.

Also entranced with how Wilkerson weaves in the importance of railroads - their role during the civil war, the way they carried the influence of northern newspapers and catalogues. She's one hell of a writer.

Apologies for being so late on this - I'm a bit behind - but I just want to echo what Diana and Krista said above. I had no idea about the lengths that white people had gone to to keep black people in the south, particularly with respect to the railroads and preventing people from boarding/traveling north or west.