Trains Symbol in The Warmth of Other Suns

Trains represent the Great Migration itself, the human quest for freedom, and migration’s power to reshape society. Like most Black migrants in the 20th century, two of Wilkerson’s protagonists—Ida Mae Gladney and George Starling—moved from the South to the North on trains. Even if the trip is daunting and the cabins are still segregated, the train journey north is the best way to escape Jim Crow, and so even seeing a train is exciting to many Black Southerners—like Wilkerson’s mother, who dreams of moving north when she watches the train pass through town as a young girl.

After he moves to New York, George Starling finds work as a porter on the Silver Meteor, the same train that took him there, and he stays in this job for more than 30 years. He becomes one of “the midwives of the Great Migration,” helping other Black migrants load their luggage, make their way to their family members in the North, and ultimately find freedom. After the Civil Rights Act of 1964 passes, George even helps his passengers integrate the trains (which were previously segregated as soon as they crossed into the South). He sees how the migrant population changes over time, until the original migrants age and their children start taking journeys South. Indeed, many of these migrants are from the same part of Florida as him, so he sees how the availability of train routes deeply shapes who migrates where. Indeed, rail lines can help researchers today understand why, for instance, so many Black Chicago residents have roots in Mississippi or so many Black New Yorkers’ parents and grandparents came from Florida.

Trains Quotes in The Warmth of Other Suns

The The Warmth of Other Suns quotes below all refer to the symbol of Trains. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:

In the end, it would take multiple trains, three separate railroads, hours of fitful upright sleep, whatever food they managed to carry, the better part of two days, absolute will, near-blind determination, and some necessary measure of faith and just plain grit for people unaccustomed to the rigors of travel to make it out of the land of their birth to the foreign region of essentially another world.

The great belching city she passed through that day was the first city Ida Mae had ever laid eyes on. That first glimpse of Chicago would stay with her for as long as she lived.

“What did it look like at that time, Chicago?” I asked her, half a life later.

“It looked like Heaven to me then,” she said.

Related Characters: Ida Mae Brandon Gladney (speaker), Isabel Wilkerson (speaker)

Related Symbols: Trains

Page Number and Citation: 226

Explanation and Analysis:

It was his tap on the shoulder that awakened them as the train neared their stop and alerted them to their new receiving city. He and other colored porters were men in red caps and white uniforms, but they functioned as the midwives of the Great Migration, helping the migrants gather themselves and disembark at the station and thus delivering to the world a new wave of newcomers with each arriving train.

Related Characters: Isabel Wilkerson (speaker), George Swanson Starling

Related Symbols: Trains

Page Number and Citation: 294

Explanation and Analysis:

Trains Symbol Timeline in The Warmth of Other Suns

The timeline below shows where the symbol Trains appears in The Warmth of Other Suns. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

...Gladney leaves Chickasaw County on an autumn night. She is nervous: she hasn’t ridden a train or left the county before, and her young children, six-year-old Velma and three-year-old James, don’t... (full context)

2. Wildwood, Florida, April 14, 1945. George Swanson Starling boards a northbound train in central Florida. Even the stairs to board the train are segregated, but George scarcely... (full context)

In rural Rome, Georgia, a young Black girl waves to the people on the train whenever it passes her school. Later, in adulthood, she rides the same train north to... (full context)

...workers: they passed laws to ban labor recruitment, confiscated northern newspapers, and even shut down trains and arrested migrants. But all of this only made people even more eager to leave.... (full context)

...with Mr. Edd, who actually owes him a little bit of money, enough for four train tickets north. He weighs the risks and decides to tell Mr. Edd the truth. Mr.... (full context)

...usually orderly and predictable. In the Great Migration, there were three main routes, which followed train lines. First, migrants from coastal states in the South (like George) generally migrated north along... (full context)

...1937. Ida Mae’s brother-in-law drives her, her children, and all their remaining possessions to the train station. Ida Mae fears that Edd Pearson will try to stop them, or that life... (full context)

...Starling throws together some clothes and books, then has a friend drive him to the train station and boards the Silver Meteor train to New York. (full context)

...night, Ida Mae, George, James, and Velma head northwest to Jackson, Tennessee, where they switch trains and board the famous Illinois Central Railroad. It’s the most popular route to Chicago and... (full context)

On the Silver Meteor, April 14, 1945. The Black passengers have to ride in the train’s baggage car, but George Starling doesn’t care. He’s still angry at the other pickers who... (full context)

...Railroad, October 1937. Ida Mae and her family barrel north through the night on the train. The Jim Crow car is crowded and uncomfortable, and Black passengers have to bring their... (full context)

On the Silver Meteor, Somewhere in the Carolinas, April 15, 1945. The train may be uncomfortable, but George Starling is thrilled to start over in New York. (full context)

...border, but also “the unspoken border between the Jim Crow South and the free Southwest.” Train passengers can switch seats and desegregate themselves as soon as they cross into New Mexico,... (full context)

...the Illinois Central Railroad, October 1937. Ida Mae and her family barely notice when their train finally leaves the South and crosses into Illinois. The night looks no different, and there... (full context)

On the Silver Meteor, Northern New Jersey, April 15, 1945. The train pulls into Penn Station in Newark, New Jersey. Surely, some of the passengers mishear “New... (full context)

...and walk through the swarming crowd. Now, they have to cross town and board another train to Milwaukee. “The great belching city” of Chicago—the first city they’ve ever visited—feels like heaven. (full context)

...back to the South: he’ll be an attendant on the railroad, including the Silver Meteor train that brought him to New York. But at least he gets to live in Harlem,... (full context)

...baggage, directions, and whatever else they need. Often, as soon as they board the northbound train, migrants start acting different—more confident and freer. On southbound trains, the passengers are mostly older... (full context)

...from Birmingham, Alabama to New York, George Starling notices a man hiding out between the train cars. In fact, many migrants hop trains when they can’t afford the tickets. For instance,... (full context)

...the New York way of telling Black people that they’re not welcome. At work, the white train conductors also abuse the Black attendants. One conductor makes them run along the moving train... (full context)

...one with Mississippi plates, one with Alabama ones. High hides in a coffin for the train ride to Chicago. (Black people have used similar tactics for generations—in 1849, Henry Box Brown... (full context)

...at the station, even if only for a few minutes while he waits for the train to refuel. One day, he even briefly runs into the notorious sheriff Willis V. McCall... (full context)

New York, Pennsylvania Station, Mid-1960s. Trains have long been integrated in the North, and in 1964, the new Civil Rights Act... (full context)

...year for high school reunions. Thanks to his years of service with the railroad, his train ticket is free. People in town have “a distant kind of respect” for him—they know... (full context)

...funeral. They remember him most of all as the well-to-do cousin who worked on the trains, brought gifts from New York, and always remembered his roots. Reuben Blye is there, too.... (full context)

Trains Symbol Analysis

Trains Quotes in The Warmth of Other Suns

Trains Symbol Timeline in The Warmth of Other Suns