Isabel Wilkerson your title
streaks be the one from other signs its from Richard Wright
about the decision I've african-americans an african-american
man
to leave the South seek a better life elsewhere he is just talk about their
choice in itself
the choice to believe it the title but I'll
the title iraq comes from Richard Wright mother and I was in the 20th century
who experience what the people the book experience what the six million
african-american support out in the south
and went all points north midwestern last and he had lived through that
and I he laughed I Mississippi for Chicago in 1927 and the road about
the heartache have making the decision to leave all the new one of the people
we love to go to some place in ever seen
and he described the idea I love
leaving the South I'll leaving all that he had known for this place
far far away for what he hoped would be the warmth of other Suns
about that it was a perfect way to describe
what they wanted when I first knew you would be with us
and as a reporting you start thinking about the question so often with authors
you wanna know
where did this come from what led you to this monumental miss this was an
enormous
labor above love NN pain I'm sure times
then I opened the book and I so the dedication to your own parents
in court hearing you said and the millions of others like them
who dared to act upon their dreams this was personal feeling that this wasn't
in a broad sense in 10 particulars your family story yes so it is
it is my family's story although interestingly enough my parents never
spoke about it and one other things that
ties this migration to even hotter migrations
I have that have occurred in the 20th century
is that people that generation generally did not talk about what they tend toward
they'd experienced tremendous hardship text tremendous
act actually you know terror the horrors a living under this caste system that
control their lives
and that once they got out they didn't talk about what they didn't do it on my
parents had come from the south and they migrated to Washington DC the first stop
on the roots North for the park to the south they were from
and they never spoke about it so in some ways the
story the book came from the desire of a daughter 21 I understand how
she came to be how my parents Matt how they made the decision to leave
what propel them to leave and how I came to be and how so many people like myself
came to be
because they weren't really talking about rock you and your parents and then
this this fastening to be
literally retrace the path 11 UP focus on three people left reply to the south
for different parts above north or west it Robert Joseph pershing foster
an educated man a physician 1953 he leaves
Louisiana for the west coast and he drove at one point was across three
states and the South
because he didn't know where would be safe for a black man
to stop get a meal get some rest
be safe doing then an amazing story there and to retrace that then
yes he had I'm had he had made this journey from
the Jim Crow South he had actually been
a surge in the Army where he can't practice surgery I for the United States
Army but was not permitted to check back to practice surgery and is on home town
of Monroe Louisiana so we set off on this perilous journey
he had a real ass have parents that would be Anne comes across the
are what he feels are the outer edges have jim crow he thought he was safe
months ago got to certain states at the West arizona-mexico
at turned out he had a difficult time finding a place to stay
to stay for the night to rest for the night and I
the hotels would not permit him around and we retrace that journey my mother my
father when the car with me as I was driving in the same way he had and the
total darkness on those hairpin curves
and not being able to see around the at these sharp corners along their
and shove the I have these mountains and we were unable to stop
we could have stopped because time was different but I want I was so determined
to recreate this that I was
doing what he had done and at a certain point my parents were quite nervous for
us because
I was veering from the road falling asleep at the wheel as he had banned
and they said you must stop the car and if you want some pic are just let us out
because we've lived through this will tell you about what it was like that
this is not say
and so we stopped in Yuma Arizona where because times have changed
we had no trouble finding a place that they were there with me in the car
and yet been in the great migration as these colored people they say were
called then
go western or two to the places that it sent the yankee soldiers south to to
liberate
to change things do they have the illusion that they're going
to a better place and I i guess its better than Jim Crow beget
when they got there they often very often more than that were not welcomed
by the weights and they weren't of unwelcome by the established
african-americans are already in place you're absolutely right in some ways
what they
experienced or what almost immigrants experience whenever they come to new
place where they are
viewed with with suspicion and resentment because it's that changes
that they might bring to the economy
worrying about whether pa-12 drive down the wages
because they're different because I bring a different culture perceived to
be bringing a different culture and they came they
they had to face the same headwinds when they arrived
in the north backtracking little bit but something I wanted to mention it
story that absolutely literally brought tears to my eyes you talk about a black
surgeon
who cannot treat black people
in the south in white hospitals and tell a story what he did how he practiced
and tried to help people in the ass in for for in that area where
everything was segregated I mean it was accidental offer my personal I present a
checkers again in Birmingham satire extreme
an arcane the world was but also was it was
against protocol and and not allowed for african-american positions to have
privileges
are admitting privileges at the hospital so whatever they did they need to do
in the cabins and homes %uh the sharecroppers that they were attending
to
and so they they had to make do with whatever they had he had actually been a
surge in the Army as an indicator rate had access to all of the
modern amenities have physicians would expect to have
and there he was in the sharecropper cabins at trying to make do with
whatever he had
and his brother who was also a physician had to carry essentially
I the entire needs a operating room and as
talk to me had this makeshift are
gurney that he had for him south on all these things they had to create and they
were often not being paid for whatever they did because they are working with
sharecroppers who didn't have the money
these are really bleak times and they went on for far longer than people are
aware of when this
the world that they were living in last into the nineteen sixties
and didn't and until the Civil Rights hair and the legislation
as you look back on the Great Migration the change this country
in so many ways socially politically culturally
and the amazing what time you spent two decades earlier
real-life to to produce this amazing book
can you look ahead and see a true melting pot where where we really
are all one and equal and respectful
I'll cultures amazed it did you see something good coming
through the years that you that you've covered and look at this well one things
that happened as a result as migration is that the
as a people who in this country had really not have the opportunity to even
so much as cheese where they went live and what they would do for a living
this is the first time that in large numbers african-americans could do that
so that opened up doors to all kinds of people people would become playwrights
people who become novelist me spots while coverage right in the beginning
people who become I musicians and physicians and
and I'm engineers all kinds of things they could not have done
in the Jim Crow South as it existed and so they opened up a way for so many
people may not make the connections
app for women and for people who come from other countries immigration laws
opened up as a result of this
rights and laws for the protected disabled man all these things
bubbled fourth after this great outpouring of people from the South
after americans have put so much pressure on the country merely by their
decisions that they made to leave
that the entire region that they had had that they'd had to flee
changed and put pressure on the rest the country as well tell really tackle
close look and what the country stands for and I think that's a hopeful
thing the fact that these individuals one percent added to another added to
another could actually change the reason that they were from
and actually open up a way for the country to look at South
gives me hope was about Wilkerson
author the one thing but the Suns the epic story of America's Great Migration
it's an awesome book thanks for spending some time with us thanks so much