El passat 5 de setembre algunes persones del club de lectura en anglès es varen trobar per comentar The Warmth of Other Suns d’Isabel Wilkerson. La Lluïsa Pardàs, membre del club ens n’ha fet arribar aquest resum:
"On September 5 our English book club discussed The Warmth of Other Suns by Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Isabel Wilkerson. This non-fiction book explores, through a blend of history and personal storytelling, the Great Migration that took place between 1915 and 1970—when about six million African Americans left the Southern United States for the Midwest, Northeast, and West.
One of the main highlights was the narrative structure, which shifts between the life stories of three individual migrants—Ida Mae Gladney, George Starling, and Robert Foster. We noted that Wilkerson balances individual journeys with historical context, making history feel alive and helping us see both the huge scale of the migration and the personal struggles and triumphs behind it.
A big question that came up was why this story had gone untold for so long. Several members suggested trauma played a role. For many who lived it, revisiting the painful realities of the Jim Crow South—segregation, discrimination, violence—was too heavy, so silence became a form of protection. In Wilkerson’s words, “Some lived in tight-lipped and cheerful denial. Others simply had no desire to relive what they had already left.”
We also spent time talking about the reasons that made people stay or leave. The brutal restrictions of Jim Crow laws made daily life unbearable for many, and leaving required great courage to step into an uncertain future. However, for others “running away meant Jim Crow had won,” so they chose instead to stand their ground and stay.
We all appreciated how Wilkerson uses personal stories to tell a much larger history. By grounding the Great Migration in primary sources (lived experiences), she gives us not just facts but human voices."
Lluïsa Pardàs
