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CRP 2011-2012

Announcing the Seventh Annual Community Read, The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson.

From World War I to the 1970s, some six million black Americans fled the American South for an uncertain existence in the urban North and West. They left all they knew and took a leap of faith that they might find freedom under the Warmth of Other Suns.

Their leaving became known as the Great Migration. It brought us James Baldwin, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Richard Wright and the forebears of Michelle Obama, Toni Morrison and of most African-Americans in the North and West. It set in motion the civil rights movement and created our cities and art forms.

This is the story of three who made the journey, of the forces that compelled them to leave and of the many others—famous and not so famous—who went as far as they could to realize the American Dream.

Wilkerson will visit West Michigan March 20-21, 2012 for presentations on campus and at Herrick District Library in Holland.

The Community Reading Project is sponsored by the Brooks College of Interdisciplinary Studies, University Libraries and University Bookstore.