The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration Review

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The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration ReviewIsabel Wilkerson, the Pulitzer Prize winning newspaper writer, has now come back to write a fascinating and sweeping book on what she calls ""the biggest underreported story of the twentieth century."
This is the story... no- make that the stories... of the "Great Migration", the migration of sharecroppers and others from the Cotton Belt to the Big Cities: New York, Chicago, Detroit, LA and etc in the period between the World Wars. Over one million blacks left the South and went North (or West). Of course we all know the tale of the "Dust Bowl" and the "Okies", as captured by Steinbeck in words, by Dorothea Lange in photographs, and even in song by Woody Guthrie. But this was as big or even bigger (estimates vary), and to this day the story has not been covered anywhere near as well as the "Dust Bowl" migrations.
Wilkerson's book has more than ten years of research in its making, and thus is a large and weighty volume at more than 600 pages. It is also personally researched, the author having interviewed over 1,200 people. She picked three dozen of those to interview in great depth, and choose but three of those stories to present to you here.
The title of this book is taken from Richard Wright's "Black Boy: A Record of Childhood and Youth": "I was taking a part of the South to transplant in alien soil, to see if it could grow differently, if it could drink of new and cool rains, bend in strange winds, respond to the warmth of other suns, and, perhaps, to bloom."
http://www.amazon.com/Black-Boy-Record-Childhood-Youth/dp/0060834005
This book is a not an easy summer read, mind you. At times both heartwarming and heartbreaking, at times so riveting you won't be able to put it down- but at other times so moving that you'll need to put it down for a while.
The author peppers her book with interesting side notes and anecdotes, such as when some of the migrants, being unfamiliar with a Northern accent, would mistakenly get off at the cry of "Penn Station, Newark," the stop just before Penn Station, New York. Many decided to stay there,according to Isabel , giving Newark "a good portion of its black population."
A personal note: My Dad got his Masters on the GI Bill, then took us to Los Angeles to be a teacher. He was partnered with a more experienced teacher- a lady we called "Miz Edna" who had migrated to LA from the South. Our families became friends, as also "Miz Edna's" husband had served in New Guinea with my father (as a cook, however, remember the WWII Army was still segregated) . I remember many of her stories, and especially her rich melodic voice, with just enough of the South remaining. Thus, I "heard" many of the quotations and personal stories here in "Miz Edna's" voice.
This is a deep and great book, I highly recommend it.
Further reading:
Arnesen, Eric. Black Protest and the Great Migration: A Brief History with Documents
Grossman, James R. Land of Hope: Chicago, Black Southerners, and the Great Migration
Lemann, Nicholas. The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America
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The Hustle: One Team and Ten Lives in Black and White Review

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The Hustle: One Team and Ten Lives in Black and White ReviewI loved it! "The Hustle" is a unique and intelligent book. On one level, it can be read as an intriguing tale about 10 boys - black and white, rich and poor -- who came together at age 14 to play basketball together for a season in Seattle. They won the state championship that year, and then went their separate ways. The book is an effort to find out what happened over the past two decades to these boys - how they grew into men, and whether the team, as an integration experiment, made a difference to each of their lives. The guys themselves are pretty interesting: they include a prosecutor who tried the notorious Green River Killer, a dot-com millionaire-turned hedgefund manager making a killing of Seattle's economic boom, a recovering crack addict, a weed dealer struggling to get out of the trade, a former hustler turned pentacostal minister, and a reclusive wine maker in Oregon. Tragically, one of the star players on the team was brutally murdered, which is a shock that propels the book and makes others on the team ponder their own life chances and luck.
On a deeper level, "The Hustle" can be seen as an exploration of race and class in America over the past 30 years (indeed, longer, as Merlino puts each character in a much larger historical context). Merlino uses the tales of each individual boy on the basketball team -- with all their struggles, their successes, their woes, their joys, their personal histories and families -- to open a window on a different aspect of American life during the past 20 years, all with Seattle as the backdrop: the dotcom boom and the instant millionaires, the crack era and the war on drugs, the challenges of creating a diverse community in elite schools, the struggling public education system, gentrification and its impact, and manhood in a time of economic and cultural uncertainty.
It is at once very personal, and at the same time "big picture" -- looking at the political, economic and cultural changes of the past twenty years, and how this group tries to find and define their own space as men on this shifting canvas. If you are a sports fan or played group sports as a kid, you will relate to the games and the comraderie described in the book. Even if you are not a sports fan (I like sports, but am not a massive fan), the use of the team as a tool to explore larger issues is still highly compelling.
Definitely worth a read.
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American Custom Car Review

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American Custom Car ReviewThere was a time when the American male was a lot more involved with his automobile. In the old days, when cars, like life, were a lot simpler, men would not only perform their own repairs, they would personalize their vehicles to set them apart from their neighbor's cars. Utilizing sheetmetal, lead, and parts from other cars, they would lower and lengthen their cars sometimes until they were unrecognizable from what they started from.
The custom car era was not that long, but there are many chapters. So many players, so many cars, that any sort of attempt to really cover the bases is difficult at best. Not to mention that many of the pioneers of the field are either getting up there in age, or have passed on to that great custom shop in the sky.
Fortunately for us, we have Pat Ganahl. Pat has been around long enough to have met many of the important people involved.
Pat is not only a writer's writer, more importantly, he is a reader's writer. A professional in every sense of the word, Pat Ganahl not only can make you understand what he's writing about, he can even make the most technical subject INTERESTING.
Of course, this book would be interesting anyway, but Pat's knowledge and passion for the subject really shine here. As former editor of Street Rodder, Hot Rod, Rod & Custom, and former cohort of the excellent Rodder's Journal, Pat is not only infinitely qualified to discuss the subject, he also demonstrates great taste. You could hardly find a better curator for this museum between two covers.
The cars and people Pat discusses here are of great historical relevance. From the beginnings back in the 30's with the great coach builders, to Harry Westergard, the Barris brothers, and Ed Roth, on up to the modern customizers like Boyd Coddington, Pat Ganahl takes you on the tour, and shows you how we got where we are today.
This book is loaded with great color and black & white photos of classic customs (Kustoms?), such as the Hirohata Merc, and the Rod & Custom Dream Truck, leading up to modern day customs, like the ZZ-Top Cadzilla. Not only are there vintage photos, but Pat has even seen fit to include a "Where are they now" section, so we can see how some of the survivors look today, thanks in no small part to keepers of the flame like Kurt McCormick, who painstaking restore and preserve these pieces of rolling history.
While the history and state of the American Custom Car goes well beyond the scope of this book (Hey, you only get so many pages to work with!), you'd find it pretty difficult to top this veritable treasure trove, without going out and spending thousands of dollars on vintage magazines. (Which you may find yourself doing anyway, as this book will surely stir up your interest!)American Custom Car Overview

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