The Warmth of Other Suns: Part Four: Divisions Summary & Analysis

The North and West, 1915 to the 1970s. Migrants face “a headwind of resentment and suspicion” in the North. Their clothes, accents, and customs set them apart, and even social scientists view their culture as deficient and pathological. But this is wrong: scholars also know that the farther migrants travel, the more ambitious and educated they tend to be. Most migrants to the North come from Southern cities and towns, not from plantations, and they are better educated than the average Black Southerner. In fact, by the 1950s, they even have more education than white locals. And, compared to Black locals, migrants are more likely to be married, employed, and financially secure. Sociologists explain this “migrant advantage” by pointing out that the most resourceful, hardest-working people are the most likely to migrate, while less resilient migrants often return home.

Still, migrants face harmful stereotypes in the North. Teachers treat Southern schoolchildren as disabled because of their accents, seat them all in the front or back rows, or force them to do menial tasks. For instance, young J.C. Owens becomes Jesse Owens because his teacher misunderstands his accent. Later, he becomes the U.S.’s greatest track and field athlete, and he wins four gold medals at the 1936 Olympics in Nazi Germany. Even though neither Hitler nor President Roosevelt will shake his hand, he’s treated better in Germany than at home.

Chicago, August 1938. Fearing that Northern doctors would strap her into a hospital bed, Ida Mae returns to Mississippi to give birth at home, with a midwife. In the meantime, George moves from Milwaukee to Chicago, where he finds work as an ice deliveryman and rents a tiny basement apartment in the dilapidated but vibrant Black neighborhood of Bronzeville. Ida Mae and the children join him in August. They try their best to avoid the neighborhood’s gangsters, gamblers, and vice.

In some ways, life in Chicago is even more miserable than in Mississippi: families are packed into in one-room shacks, which are usually falling apart and often lack heat and running water. Nobody will rent to Black people outside Bronzeville, but as more and more migrants arrive, there is less and less space for them. And since they have no other option, they pay much higher rents than white families—for far inferior housing. Eventually, this “pattern of overcharging and underinvestment” creates ghetto neighborhoods in cities across the North.

After World War I, jobs and housing were insufficient to keep up with Black migration to Chicago. In 1919, after white boys drowned a Black teenager who swam too close to the white side of a beach, serious race riots broke out. For two weeks, white and Black city residents randomly attacked each other and burned down houses and businesses. Such riots are effectively the North’s version of lynching—most are started by “disaffected whites,” who are often from the rural South—just like the Black migrants they blame for their poor working conditions. The first such riot was in East St. Louis, Illinois in 1917, when white miners turned against Black strikebreakers. After the Chicago riots, even though the government made recommendations for improving race relations, the city only became more and more segregated.

New York, Summer 1945. George brings Inez to New York with him and offers to rent her a beauty shop for her business. But she takes up nursing instead, whether “to show her independence, to spite him, or both.” George starts partying during his free time to cope with his unhappy marriage. Like Ida Mae’s neighborhood of Bronzeville, Harlem is overcrowded, and its residents pay unfairly high rents—which they cover by throwing poker parties. George starts attending and then throwing his own parties with Babe Blye (now his upstairs tenant). But Babe keeps losing their money, and then George catches him cheating, so he shuts down their operation.

Los Angeles, June 1953. Robert Foster decides to open his own private practice. He finds an office near the USC campus, and friends from Monroe help him furnish it and throw an open house. Then, Alice and their daughters join him. He finds an apartment near the office, but the landlord cancels at the last minute, so he rents a doctor friend’s apartment near the Becks instead. Still, he struggles to get patients. Some Black migrants from Monroe prefer white doctors, some hold onto old hometown grudges, and some simply envy his success. So he targets patients from New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Texas instead.