The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson

Despite growing up near Detroit, spending a decade of my life in Chicago, then spending another 16 years in the American South (Texas and Florida), my knowledge of Black history is pretty pathetic. I'm really trying to educate myself about BIPOC issues and authors, and dove into another Big Summer Book a couple of weeks ago. It's a fairly long book, more than 500 pages of text, but the stories are so compelling and the writing is so good that I could hardly put it down and finished it in less than a week.

The Warmth of Other Suns is the kind of history book I love, non-fiction that reads like fiction. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Isabel Wilkerson interweaves the narrative story of three different African-Americans who leave the South in the first half of the century, part of the Great Migration. From 1915 to 1970, approximately 6 million African-Americans left the South, migrating North and West, hoping for a better life for themselves and their families in states without Jim Crow laws. Wilkerson shares the stories of three people: Ida Mae Gladney, a pregnant sharecropper, stealthily leaves Mississippi in 1937 with her husband and two children to Wisconsin and then Chicago; George Starling leaves the orange groves of Central Florida in 1945 and becomes a Pullman porter based in Harlem; and surgeon Robert Foster leaves for California in 1953, since even his medical degree and experience as an Army doctor fail to protect him from prejudice and discrimination in his home state of Louisiana.

All three have very different stories, but they're equally absorbing and often horrifying. A neighbor of Ida Mae was nearly beaten to death when he's believed to have stolen some missing turkeys (who were merely roosting in a different part of the nearby woods). George tries to organize a strike of  fruit pickers working for pennies a box in dangerous conditions during the height of demand in WWII, and has to leave town after he hears a rumor he's about to be lynched. Dr. Foster works for years as a surgeon on a U.S. Army base in Austria, but he can't even find a motel for a night's rest as he drives for days on his Westbound route to California, even after leaving the South. Over and over there are stories of racial slurs, discrimination, and police brutality. Clearly, things haven't changed much.

Once they leave for the west and the north, all three still face discrimination, just less subtle. Practices of redlining prevent African-Americans from renting and buying, so they end up paying more for less, forcing them to live in crowded apartments and neighborhoods. Ida Mae and her husband are shut out of job after job. George Starling finally gets a backbreaking job as a train porter, but after years of service, is never promoted. Though a respected surgeon, Dr. Foster has to drive all over Los Angeles collecting urine samples for an insurance company to make enough money and contacts to set up his own practice.

The presence of so many black migrants elevated the status of other immigrants in the North and West. Black southerners stepped into a hierarchy that assigned them a station beneath everyone else, no matter that their families had been in the country for centuries. Their arrival unwittingly diverted anti-immigrant antagonisms their way, as they were an even less favored outsider group than the immigrants they encountered in the North and helped make formerly ridiculed groups more acceptable by comparison.

These incidents happened years ago, and it's still happening now. I'm appalled that I was never taught any of this in school -- and I grew up less than 30 miles from downtown Detroit. I didn't know that Chicago, a city in which I lived for almost ten years, is one of the most segregated in America, and has some of the most racist suburbs and the worst racial riots. I didn't know that one of the most racist cities in Florida was less than an hour from my in-laws retirement home, halfway between their house and Disney World. And I'd never heard of Juneteenth even though I lived in Texas for eleven years and my children were required by state law to take an entire year of Texas history. They were never taught it (and the Civil War was about the South "defending State's Rights." Some people still call it the War of Northern Aggression).

But this isn't about me, or my lack of education. I intend to from the real struggles and lived experiences Black Americans and other minorities are facing now and have been facing for years. I want to be a better reader and a better blogger, and read more books by BIPOC authors. I highly recommend The Warmth of Other Suns if you want to do the same. If you are looking for more suggestions, here is an anti-racist list by Ibram X. Kendi.

Go Tell it On the Mountain by James Baldwin

Go Tell it On the Mountain has probably been on my to-read list since 2005, since I discovered The Modern Library 100 Best Novels list.  (I've now read 48 of them.)  Along with Native Son and The Invisible Man, this novel is one of the classics of African-American fiction.

This is a short book, about 250 pages in most editions.  Basically, this is a semi-autobiographical story based on Baldwin's early life.  It's centered around a day in the life of John Grimes, on his 14th birthday.  It's 1935 and he's growing up in Harlem,  where he lives with his parents, baby sister, and younger brother Royal.  His father Gabriel is a preacher, and everyone thinks he'll grow up in his father's footsteps.  He and his father have a difficult relationship, because his father favors his younger, wilder brother.

The story deals with John's spiritual and sexual awakening, and flashes back to his parents, Gabriel and Elizabeth, and his aunt Florence, and how they moved north from their life of poverty in the Deep South.  It's not overtly about racial conflict, but racism plays a big part in their situation and how it shapes their lives.  There's a lot of religion in the novel, but it's also about family dynamics.

Go Tell it On the Mountain was an easier read for me than Native Son, which has some really unpleasant characters doing horrible things, but I don't think Baldwin was trying to make a big social statement like Richard Wright.  I think it's really just a snapshot, a look into people's lives.  I'm not a religious person, so I'll admit that those parts of the book really didn't speak to me and I ended up skimming them somewhat.  What I was really interested in was the family histories, the role of the female characters, and how hard it was for African-Americans at that time.  The characters are really well-developed and I found them very realistic.

This book was the monthly selection for the library's classic book group, and though not everyone had managed to finish the book, we had a really good discussion about religion and how writers portray it in modern novels versus older book.  I'd still like to read Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, though I'm a little intimidated by it, because of the length and the subject matter.

Have any of you read Go Tell it On the Mountain?  How about Invisible Man?

This is the second book I've completed for the Back to the Classics Challenge 2013. 

Native Son by Richard Wright

Holy *&^%$$!!!  

That is my first reaction to this book. I've tried my best to avoid spoilers, but if nothing else, I will say that this is one of the most shocking, horrifying books I've read. I wanted to stop reading it, but I couldn't. I had to find out what was going to happen to Bigger Thomas, who must be one of the most famous train wrecks in literary history, and deservedly so.

A short setup: Bigger Thomas, a young African-American man, is scraping out a miserable existence as a criminal in 1930s Chicago. He lives in a rat-infested one-room tenement with his mother, brother, and sister, and has no job.  On the first day of our novel he is trying to decide whether he should commit an armed robbery, not his first. His mother is pushing him to accept a job to get the family off welfare -- a job as a chauffeur for a wealthy white family, who ironically own the overpriced tenement in which they live. Bigger decides not to commit the robbery and go for the job, so for a few pages it's almost hopeful that he'll break the cycle and lead a better life. Sadly, before he finishes his first day on the new job, Bigger commits a horrible (though possibly accidental) crime that leads to a downward spiral of deceit and crime. Native Son has no chapters, but it's divided into three books: Fear, Flight, and Fate. The first book is largely centered around the development of Bigger's character and his crime. The second book concerns his attempts to escape; and the third is his trial and judgement.

I was really surprised that Bigger was such a horrible character. I won't sugar-coat it, Bigger is really unpleasant. For a protagonist, I could not find one redeeming quality in him.  He is mean, devious, and completely self-centered. Apparently author Richard Wright didn't want to create someone who people could find sympathetic and cry over, then forget about. Believe me, you will not forget about Bigger. But Wright turns the tables and uses Bigger to make some really important and uncomfortable points about racism and race relations. 

This book has been on my to-read list since 2005, when I decided to read the entire Modern Library list of the top 100 novels.  (This brings me to 45 completed on that list, 55 on the Radcliffe Top 100).  There's a lot of debate about what makes something a "best" novel, but I have finally decided that these two lists aren't necessarily the best novels of the 20th century, but really the most important, the most groundbreaking, because most of them have achieved something noteworthy that hadn't been done before. Though I can't really say I liked this novel, I can respect and appreciate its importance in the literary canon. In a way I'm sorry I took so long to read it, but I'm glad that I waited since I was able to discuss it with real people in our February book group meeting. My good friend Amanda at The Zen Leaf is also a member, and you can read her thoughts about Native Son here.

This book is not for everyone -- not for the squeamish or easily offended. It's one of those riveting stories that are just horrible, but the writing is so good I wanted to finish it. I'll admit, the book is very intense and several times I had to put the book down and step away. I did read this book in just a few days, so despite its length (430 pages of text in my paperback edition, plus lots of extra stuff) it's a really fast read.

I can't say it's one of the best books I've ever read -- the third book in particular has some very long speeches in which Wright gets up on his literary soapbox, and I'll admit I skimmed parts of this -- but certainly, it is a book that I will never forget.  I have no desire to read it again, but I'm glad I read it.

Passing by Nella Larsen

Welcome to the second week of the Harlem Renaissance on the Classics Circuit!  Today's review is Nella Larsen's Passing.  Set in the late 1920s, it's the story of a young upper-class woman, Irene and her childhood friend Clare.  Both are light-skinned African American women, both can pass for white.  The protagonist, Irene, does so when it's convenient for her -- for example, to enjoy the luxuries of a  whites-only restaurant or hotel. 

The story begins on a hot, sultry day in Chicago.  Irene, who is happily married to a successful African-American doctor, lives in New York and is visiting her.  While enjoying an iced tea on rooftop cafe, she notices a beautiful white woman staring at her.  At first, she's concerned that the woman knows she's "passing" at the whites-only restaurant, but then she realizes that it's her childhood friend Clare.  Clare is not only also passing for white, but has completely adopted a white identity, going so far as to marry a white man who is a complete and utter bigot -- and a wealthy, international businessman.  Clare is enjoying the benefits of an upscale lifestyle, but after her chance meeting with Irene, Clare finds she is drawn more and more to her own race.  Despite the risks, she continues to spend more time with Irene's African-American community  in Harlem, disrupting her own life and Irene's as well.  

Nella Larsen knew the subject material well.  She was the child of a mixed marriage -- her mother was Danish and her father from the Danish Virgin Islands -- though from what I've read she couldn't or didn't try to pass for white.  She was born in 1891 and attended historically black schools including the Tuskeegee Institute and a black nursing school.  After nursing school she became a librarian and worked at the New York Public Library in Harlem.  She began writing during the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s, but after her marriage failed and she was accused of plagiarism, she stopped writing and died in relative obscurity. 

I'd like to say I enjoyed this book, but more than anything, I found it to be distrubing and sad.  I simply cannot imagine the awfulness of having to hide such an important piece of your identity, to spend your life living a lie.  And this isn't the first time I've heard about racism within races, but it's still unsettling to read about it.   

Here's a short quote from the novel:

She said: "It's funny about 'passing.'  We disapprove of it and at the same time condone it. It excites our contempt and yet we rather admire it.  We shy away from it with an odd kind of revulsion, but we protect it."

I actually thought that this book would focus primarily on the racism issue, but a lot of time is spent on the relationshiop between Clare and Irene -- Clare pretends to be Irene's friend, but she's really just worming her way into Irene's life and she can't get rid of her.  I think this aspect of the novella is really universal, and most people could relate to that.  This book is really short, just about 100 pages, so it's a quick read. But there's a lot packed in here, about race, identity, loyalty, relationships, jealousy. This would be a great book for a discussion group -- I really wish I had someone to discuss this with, especially the ending.  I know other upcoming reviewers will be discussing this book, and Larsen's other works, so I look forward to reading them and seeing other opinions.