A review by mariagarnett
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson

5.0

"In the end, it could be said that the common denominator for leaving was the desire to be free, like the Declaration of Independence said, free to try out for most any job they pleased, play checkers with whomever they chose, sit where they wished on the streetcar, watch their children walk across a stage for the degree most of them didn't have the chance to get. They left to pursue some version of happiness, whether they achieved it or not. It was a seemingly simple thing that the majority of Americans could take for granted but that the migrants and their forbears never had a right to in the world they had fled."

536.