The Warmth Of Other Suns

Chapter 13 briefly describes George Swanson Starling’s first impressions of Manhattan, where he “was hoping [he] would be able to live as a man and express [himself] in a manly way without the fear of getting lynched at night” (229).

Chapter 14 briefly describes Robert Joseph Pershing Foster’s first impressions of California, “one of the last receiving stations of the twentieth-century migration out of the South” (233), since “distance between California and the old Confederacy had discouraged all but the most determined of black pioneers” (233). Oakland was a disappointment, so he decided to travel south to Los Angeles, where he believed all of his dreams would come true and where he could “start living for the first time in his life” (237). 

Because life in the South was so dramatically different from life in the North, African-Americans “brought the Old Country with them” (240), and they surrounded themselves with people they knew “from the next farm” (240) back home. Black migrants built communities to create solidarity and power. As often as they could, “they wired money back home” (241), to assist those left behind and to prove that life was better and success possible in the North.

Still, many pined for place that a “part of them had not wanted to leave” (241). They felt they had been forced out; if they had been half as well treated in the South as they were in the North, they never would have left (241).

In Chapter 16, Wilkerson uses the experiences of the three central figures, newly arrived in their respective cities, to show the ways in which Southern migration slowly changed the dynamics of Northern cities. Migration ran along rail lines, so Northern cities served by major train lines received a disproportionate number of migrants that now needed housing and work. Tensions developed in those cities around housing in particular, as neighborhoods at first did everything possible to keep out migrants. However, due to the basic economics of the situation, this soon began to change. For instance, in Harlem, “the flood of colored migrants soon broke down the last of the racial levees” (250).

Migrants faced other obstacles. While some, like Ida Mae Brandon Gladney and George Swanson Starling transitioned relatively seamlessly to their new lives, Robert Joseph Pershing Foster was “beside himself” (255) trying to build his medical practice. Foster had assumed that in Los Angeles patients would just be waiting for him. However, Blacks in California “had choices colored people in the South couldn’t dream of” (255)—a situation that meant they could chose to patronize services they had previously been denied, and did not necessarily want to see a Black migrant doctor. 

Although many African-Americans believed that they would suddenly be able to live their lives to the fullest once they left the South, “unknowingly, the migrants were walking into a headwind of resentment and suspicion” (260). While history has often mischaracterized black migrants, the facts show that “the greater the obstacles and the farther the distance traveled, the more ambitious the migrants” (261). Often, migrants “resemble in educational levels the whites among whom they live [and who are] of substantially higher socioeconomic status, on average, than the resident Negro population” (263).

For Ida Mae Brandon Gladney, who arrived in Chicago during the Great Depression, life was hard, but still appreciably better. She continued as a mother and a homemaker, while her husband George left to find work in  Milwaukee—an example of Wilkerson’s point about the engagement and drive present within the migrant community.

Finally having been able to bring his wife up North, George Swanson Starling threw himself headlong into life in Harlem, which, in 1945, was a burgeoning black community ripe with fashion, culture, and nightlife. He participated in events like end-of-the-month parties that allowed African-Americans to raise money to cover the rent and to blow off steam in a friendly and warm community of their peers.

Robert Joseph Pershing Foster, having finally succeeded in building his medical practice, sent for his wife and daughters to come live with him in Los Angeles. Still trying to fully escape from the shadow of his father-in-law, Robert felt pressure to become the “man” of the family. His drive for visible recognition increased, and he vowed to “put on a show so they wouldn’t forget him” (284) to prove all the people who doubted him wrong.