A Little Farther Down the Path: The Warmth of Other Suns

I might never have known about Isabel Wilkerson’s book, The Warmth of Other Suns, had it not been recommended by a Facebook friend who, upon reading one of my posts, thought I might appreciate this book. She was right. Thanks, Mary.

The book’s subhead summarizes its subject: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration. At least two or three events in US American history have either claimed or been tagged with that designation. The one Wilkerson writes about is probably the least well known and by far the largest. Her book chronicles, after a fashion, the period between 1915 and 1970 when six million African Americans left the Deep South and resettled in the Northeast, the Upper Midwest, and the Far West in search of greater opportunity and freedom from discrimination, injustice, and even physical cruelty.

Advertisement

A Little Farther Down the Path: Between the World and Me

I first learned of Ta-Nehisi Coates through his writing in The Atlantic magazine. His article titled “The Case for Reparations” in the June 2014 issue is one of the finest examples of long-form journalism I have ever read. The article’s subhead effectively summarizes his point: Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal. Thirty-five years of racist housing policy. Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole.

Ta-Nehisi Coates, New York City, 2012

By the time I read that article, a similar thesis had been percolating in my brain forseveral years. My thinking did not address the question of reparations, and I don’t think Coates really believes that will ever really materialize. His larger point, I believe, was that, while some kind of monetary reparation would be fair and helpful, if a strong majority of white Americans would simply come to believe in the justice of the idea, that would go a long way toward healing the gaping wounds left by the historical realities summarized in his article’s subhead.