The Great Migration, the “unseen” movement of over four million African-Americans out of the American South in the first half of the 20th Century, is likely the largest internal shift of a nation’s population anytime, and anywhere, in history. Who they were, where they went and how they got there, are important elements of the tale. But the story of WHY this long and silent exodus happened is a wrenching chronicle of what is was like to be a 'Negro' in America in the first half of the 1900s. It’s difficult to fully grasp. “Racism” is a wholly inadequate term to describe what compelled millions of Americans to abandon much of what they knew and loved for an uncertain future in the North.  Rather, the South’s unrelentingly cruel and systemic oppressions - known collectively as ‘Jim Crow’, a name drawn from a northern minstrel character in black-face – was the underlying current of causation, the riptide of human intolerance that pushed them northward.  After the centuries-long horror of slavery and the promise of the Emancipation Proclamation, a society built on White Superiority over Negroes discarded generations of Black Americans into a life-long abyss of dehumanizing fear, terroristic intimidation, and almost unimaginable violence with a level of indifferent cruelty against fellow human beings, fellow citizens of America, that is nearly impossible to comprehend as ever having actually happened. And yet, it did. Every day of every month of every year. For Generations. Entire lifetimes began and ended for millions of African-Americans, here in America, without ever having fulfilled the basic human desire for self-determination, for true freedom. The Warmth Of Other Suns is the story of their struggle to find that freedom for themselves.  Be daring enough to set aside what you think you know, and read this stunning book. It will change how you think about America then and now, as history written well ought to do.