This account adds several layers of unfamiliar detail, including the degree to which whites were willing to take economic penalty to preserve Jim Crow. For example, a segregated movie theater cost 50% more to build than an integrated one. Nonetheless, the price was willingly paid. The economic injustice and humiliation suffered by the black minority was heartbreaking, and this comes through in the narrative.

I often find that the most enjoyable reading offers a mix of poignancy and humor, and this story has it in abundance. The following passage from page 188 captures this within Jim Crow:

• The choice of a name was a serious undertaking. It was the first and maybe only thing colored parents could give to a child, and they were often sentimental about it. They had a habit of recycling the names of beloved kinpeople, and thus ending up with three or four Lou Dellas in one or two generations. Out of the confusion it created, children got nicknames like Boo or Pip or Sweet, which after repeated use meant nobody knew anybody’s given name until they got married or died. It left mourners at southern funerals not knowing for sure who was in the casket unless the preacher called out “Junebug” in the eulogy. Oh that’s Junebug that died!

The middle third of the book covers new ground, the motivation and execution of the migration itself. The primary drivers were the escape from Jim Crow and the potential economic opportunity in the burgeoning factories of the north. The migration began during World War I, when the long-time source of immigrant labor from Europe was cut off. Most of the migrants went by rail, with three routes dominating: The east coast, from Florida up to New York and the Northeast; The Texas-to Pacific line, to California and the west coast, and most famously the Illinois Central (of which Abraham Lincoln was the lawyer in the 1840s), from New Orleans to Chicago and the Midwest. The transition from the segregated south into the north was first experienced on these trains. Upon entering Cairo, Illinois from Kentucky, the passengers deboarded for a few minutes to allow the segregated cars to be removed and integrated cars attached.

Upon reaching the north and settling in, some aspects of the migrant’s new lives were wonderful. This passage on page 304 captures an example.

• Ida Mae was not certain what to do. She had never touched an election ballot. She walked in, and the lady came over and directed her to where she should go. Ida Mae stepped inside a polling booth for the first time in her life and drew the curtain behind her. She unfolded the palm card she was given and tried to remember what the lady told her about how to punch in the choices for President of the United States and other political offices. It was the first time she would ever have a say in such things. What was unthinkable in Mississippi would eventually become so routine in Chicago that Mr. Tibbs would ask Ida Mae to volunteer at the polls next time.   

However, migrating blacks encountered much the same degree of animosity and discrimination in housing and employment that they had in the South, albeit unwritten in law. The northern whites, in many cases immigrants themselves, were like southern whites in their willingness to pay economic penalty to remain segregated, such as by sending their children to expensive private schools. The segregation of blacks and whites in housing became even more complete in northern cities than southern, and with the segregation came poor, run-down neighborhoods and underfunded schools. The sad legacies of the Great Migration in urban poverty and racial injustice remain very powerful today.

The migration finally halted around 1970 as Civil Rights legislation and economic growth in the south removed the major incentives to leave. By then, the talents, energy, and perseverance of the migrants contributed significantly to the communities they inhabited in the north. Fields including politics, music, literature, and athletics, to name a few, have benefited enormously from the Great Migration. In addition, the Great Migration was an important factor in the industrial vibrancy of the North and the loss of people resulted in much slower growth of the South.

The author, Isabel Wilkerson, is a professor of journalism at Boston University and a Pulitzer Prize winner for journalism while working for The New York Times. This is her first book, but her recent second book on current American politics and caste is already a bestseller. As a journalist, Prof. Wilkerson constructed The Warmth of Other Suns based on more than 1000 interviews, and also draws on her own parents’ migration north. However, she has studied the historic and demographic archives very carefully, and therefore is able to weave her touching anecdotes within a solid historic narrative. The book very deservedly won the National Book Critic’s Circle Award for Nonfiction.