Wilkerson emphasizes the connection between the Great Migration, which she has portrayed as a tale of Black Americans collectively pursuing freedom and happiness, and popular ideas of American identity, which frequently revolve around these same concepts. Ultimately, this is part of a broader project of integrating Black history and identity into our core understanding of what it means to be American, in the same way as the “nation of immigrants” story about white Europeans has been. Indeed, for Wilkerson, this and the Great Migration are really two versions of the same story.