The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson includes the story of the Great Migration and those who settled in Oakland, CA

The profound movement of African-Americans from the south to the north and west in the decades after World War I transformed cities like Oakland. Of the millions that left the south for the north and west, author Isabel Wilkerson uncovers a link from one Southern town in Louisiana to Oakland, CA.

Pulitzer prize winning New York Times journalist and Boston University professor Isabel Wilkerson appears at St. Paul’s Episocal Church tonight to discuss, “The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration.” This KPFA-sponsored event helps Marcus Books celebrate its 50th anniversary.

Wilkerson’s meticulously-researched book traces migrants that came to Oakland from southern cities like Monroe, CA.  In fact, she traces notables who migrated from the same small Louisiana town.

The promise of freedom and opportunity and safety pulled African-Americans west. The first Monroe resident to migrate was Mantan Moreland, a minor Hollywood figure who made a name for himself as the fumbling manservant in the Charlie Chan movies.  He left Monroe for Los Angeles during the Depression.  As the story goes, he was on his way to shine shoes in West Monroe and passed a tree with a black man hanging from it.  He left that day.

Pershing Foster followed in 1953. He returned home to Monroe after serving in the Korean War as a surgeon.  He drove to California through Texas, full of the fear of racism and Jim Crow.  He was halfway through the drip before he felt safe enough to stop.

In 1943, a toddler named Huey Newton left Monroe to Oakland with his sharecropping parents.  His father had barely escaped a lynching in Louisiana for talking back to his white overseers.  He went on to found the Black Panther Party in 1966.

Bill Russell was born in Monroe, LA in 1934.  He watched his father and mother suffer – his dad went to a gas station and was told he would have to wait for the white people to get their gas first.  After waiting a long time, he started to pull off and the owner put a shotgun to his head to prevent him leaving until all the white people had been served.  A policeman once grabbed Russell’s mother and ordered her to take off the suit she was wearing because she hade no business dressing like a white woman.

Bill’s family packed up and moved to Oakland, where he won a scholarship to the University of San Francisco and led his team the Dons to two NCAA championships.  It was a first for an integrated basketball team.  He went on the join the Celtics in 1956 and lead Boston to eleven championships in his thirteen seasons.  He became one of the greatest basketball players of all time.

Writes Wilkerson: There is no way to know what might have happened to Bill Russell had his parents not migrated…he would not have been allowed inot any white college in Louisiana in the early 1950’s, and thus would not have been in a position to be recruited to the NBA.

Isabel Wilkerson’s book is the first comprehensive story of the Great Migration, beautifully written and focused on the migration stories of three individuals and their families. She characterizes many migrants as “churchgoers, tax-payers, and blue-collar”.

Just look around the cities for evidence of the migration.  In 1940, there were 124,306 black people in all of California.  In the 1940s, more than 250,000 migrated to our state, in the 1950’s, another 340,000 and a quarter million in the sixties.  Shipyard, manufacturing and munitions jobs drew migrants who found themselves the victim of discrimination even in the labor markets in Oakland and other places.

Equally important, she draws a powerful parallel between the experiences of African-Americans during the Great Migration and those of immigrants that cross the border.

It’s a story that touches the lives of almost every African-American, and every American by extension.

Event details:

Isabel Wilkerson speaks about The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration”
Thurs, Sept 23, 2010, 7:30pm
St. Paul’s Church, 114 Montecito Ave near Grand Ave, Oakland, CA
Tickets $10 in advance at brownpapertickets.com, Marcus Books. $12 at the door.

Aimee Allison, of the KPFA Morning Show and Publisher of Oaklandseen.com will host the event.

[Editor’s note:  share the story of your family’s migration to Oakland – send your note to editor@oaklandseen.com and we’ll share them with our readers.]