Required Reading: The Great Migration

By Carol Van Why, Library Committee Co-Chair
 
After I re-read Toni Morrison’s Bluest Eye I viewed the documentary titled Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am. Along with 6 million other African Americans. Morrison’s family fled the Jim Crow-era South during the twentieth century’s Great Migration. 
 
Knowing a bit more of Toni’s story convinced me to read two related books. The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson, published in 2010, 

went on to win the National Book Critics Circle Award. Wilkerson chronicles the lives of three individuals who left different regions of the South, headed to different U.S. cities at different times during a 55-year time span. Find it in the Library’s BIOGRAPHY COLLECTIONS area. ​
 
An excellent companion to Wilkerson’s book is Jacob Lawrence: The Migration Series.  Jacob’s parents gradually made their way from the rural South, eventually settling in Harlem. Fortunately, Lawrence’s artistic talent was nurtured during the Depression by a WPA program dedicated to cultural work.  His 60-piece Migration Series, depicting scenes from this twentieth century mass migration, is reproduced in this book.  Find this book on our Library’s upper level in the ARTISTS section.