History
by Isabel Wilkerson
Why did six million people leave?
Between 1915 and 1970, almost six million Black Americans left the South for cities in the North and West. Isabel Wilkerson interviewed more than 1,200 people who lived through it, and tells the story through three of them.
Hear a sample · read by Laura
Wilkerson describes the Jim Crow South as a caste system. Laws and customs decided where Black people could sit, work, study and vote, and anyone thought to have stepped out of place risked violence. For millions, leaving was the one way to refuse it.
Wilkerson follows Ida Mae, a sharecropper's wife who left Mississippi in 1937 for Milwaukee, then Chicago; George, a citrus picker who fled Florida for New York in 1945; and Robert, a surgeon who drove from Louisiana to Los Angeles in 1953. Each took one of the migration's three main routes.
In the North the migrants could vote and earn more. They also met neighbourhoods closed to them, the lowest-paid jobs and, at times, mobs. In 1951 a crowd attacked an apartment block in Cicero, outside Chicago, because a Black family was moving in.
Migrants were often blamed for the troubles of northern cities. Wilkerson points to research showing the opposite. Compared with Black people born in the North, migrants were more likely to be working and married, and less likely to be on welfare.
Six million
Between 1915 and 1970, about six million Black Americans left the South for the North and West.
Why they left
Black Southerners were escaping Jim Crow as much as looking for work, and many left in secret.
Ida Mae
Ida Mae Gladney, a sharecropper's wife from Mississippi, found a harder but freer life in Chicago.
George
George Starling had to flee Florida after organising fellow fruit pickers to ask for better pay.
Robert
Robert Foster, a surgeon, drove west to California and was turned away from motel after motel.
A story from the book
In 1945 George Starling, a citrus picker in Eustis, Florida, got fellow pickers to hold out for better pay. Warned that the grove owners planned to kill him, he fled to New York. For decades he then worked on trains up and down the East Coast, carrying other migrants north.
Hot take · true or myth?
The migrants were mostly uneducated and made northern cities poorer.
Myth. Wilkerson cites research showing migrants were better schooled than those who stayed in the South, and more likely to be working and married than Black people born in the North.
One thing to try
This week, ask an older relative or neighbour where their family lived two or three generations ago, and why they moved. Write down one detail they remember, like the name of a street or a first job. Wilkerson built her book from conversations like these.
Knotd has the key ideas from 250+ non-fiction books, each in a few minutes, in plain words. The Warmth of Other Suns comes with a Hot Take round to make it stick.
Get the whole book on KnotdOpen in the appWhy did six million people leave? Between 1915 and 1970, almost six million Black Americans left the South for cities in the North and West. Isabel Wilkerson interviewed more than 1,200 people who lived through it, and tells the story through three of them.
Leaving a caste system; Three people, three routes; The North had walls too; Better off than people assumed.
This week, ask an older relative or neighbour where their family lived two or three generations ago, and why they moved. Write down one detail they remember, like the name of a street or a first job. Wilkerson built her book from conversations like these.
Yes. Knotd has the key ideas from The Warmth of Other Suns in a few minutes, in plain words, plus a Hot Take round to test them. It's one of 250+ non-fiction books in the app.
