The Great Migration

Isabel Wilkerson won a Pulitzer Prize for journalism in 1994 (the first African American woman to do so!), and then burst upon the popular History scene with The Warmth of Other Suns. Between 1916 to 1970, six million Black Americans left the Jim Crow-era south and headed to points north in the Northeastern, Midwestern, and Western regions of the U.S. Fifteen years in the making, The Warmth of Other Suns illuminated the Great Migration through precise research, statistical analysis, and three biographical stories rich with novelistic detail. Ida Mae Brandon Gladney, a sharecropper’s wife resettled in Chicago in the 1930s; an agricultural worker named George Swanson Starling moved from Florida to New York City in the 1940s; and a Louisiana physician, Robert Joseph Pershing Foster, headed for Los Angeles in the 1950s. As an armchair historian relatively new to Audible at the time, Robin Miles’ performance (she later entered the Audible Narrator Hall of Fame, not surprisingly!) opened my mind and heart to what deep-dive audio narrative could be. (Ken Burns introduced the audio edition, which was icing on the cake!) I can’t miss this opportunity to highlight a stellar labor of love – and the listens that surround it in our store. Please click here to explore stories influenced by The Great Migration (and the Second Great Migration.) —Christina, Audible Editor
Product List
  • The Warmth of Other Suns Audiobook By Isabel Wilkerson cover art

    • The Warmth of Other Suns

    • The Epic Story of America's Great Migration
    • By: Isabel Wilkerson
    • Narrated by: Robin Miles
    • Length: 22 hrs and 40 mins
    • Release date: 12-26-10
    • Language: English
    • 5 out of 5 stars 13,854 ratings
    • The audio that humanized the challenges and triumphs of the Great Migration for listeners, from a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, brought to life by Hall of Fame narration.

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  • Black Boy Audiobook By Richard Wright cover art

    • Black Boy

    • By: Richard Wright
    • Narrated by: Peter Francis James
    • Length: 15 hrs and 28 mins
    • Release date: 02-18-20
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 373 ratings
    • Isabel Wilkerson named her *magnum opus* after a lyrical turn of phrase in Richard Wright’s 1945 classic coming-of-age memoir.

    Regular price: $26.99 or 1 credit

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  • Wandering in Strange Lands Audiobook By Morgan Jerkins cover art

    • Wandering in Strange Lands

    • A Daughter of the Great Migration Reclaims Her Roots
    • By: Morgan Jerkins
    • Narrated by: Morgan Jerkins
    • Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
    • Release date: 08-04-20
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 80 ratings
    • Morgan Jenkins, hailed by BookRiot as ''one of the smartest young writers of her generation,'' recreates via writing and narration the journeys made by an earlier generation, discovering her family’s personal history in the north and south.

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  • Making Our Way Home Audiobook By Blair Imani, Patrisse Cullors - foreword cover art

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  • Our Harlem Audiobook By Marcus Samuelsson cover art

    • Our Harlem

    • Seven Days of Cooking, Music and Soul at the Red Rooster
    • By: Marcus Samuelsson
    • Narrated by: Marcus Samuelsson
    • Length: 6 hrs and 5 mins
    • Release date: 06-27-19
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 2,313 ratings
    • I love to cook, but it was Marcus Samuelsson (with Isabel Wilkerson as a guest, among many others!) who drew a line—voice first—between the cuisine of Harlem and soul food’s roots in the Deep South. With all the joy and diversity of Harlem itself, the author of Yes, Chef (and impresario of the Red Rooster restaurant), invites listeners to visit Our Harlem on audio.

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  • Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick Audiobook By Zora Neale Hurston cover art

    • Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick

    • Stories from the Harlem Renaissance
    • By: Zora Neale Hurston
    • Narrated by: Aunjanue Ellis
    • Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
    • Release date: 03-17-20
    • Language: English
    • 4.5 out of 5 stars 632 ratings
    • Zora Neale Hurston—memorably of Eatonville, Florida in fiction and nonfiction—experienced the Harlem Renaissance first hand, as narrated by Aunjanue Ellis in this collection.

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  • Becoming Audiobook By Michelle Obama cover art

    • Becoming

    • By: Michelle Obama
    • Narrated by: Michelle Obama
    • Length: 19 hrs and 3 mins
    • Release date: 11-13-18
    • Language: English
    • 5 out of 5 stars 181,823 ratings
    • Michelle Obama, like many quintessential Chicagoans, has a family history tied to the Great Migration: ''Even as a kid, I understood innately that the South was knit into me….''

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  • Caste Audiobook By Isabel Wilkerson cover art

    • Caste

    • The Origins of Our Discontents
    • By: Isabel Wilkerson
    • Narrated by: Robin Miles
    • Length: 15 hrs and 10 mins
    • Release date: 08-04-20
    • Language: English
    • 5 out of 5 stars 20,638 ratings
    • The epic popular history recounted in The Warmth of Other Suns continues to have repercussions in the 21 st century.Isabel Wilkerson’ s prose, voiced to perfection(again!) by Robin Miles, explores caste in the U.S.in this work that is painfully, brilliantly, of the present time.

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