>> tomorrow 1 "washington journal," philip rucker talks about attitudes among voters in this year's midterm, danielle petk -- pletka discusses funding, and david armor looks at the impact of school desegregation on school districts and overall education. "washington journal" is live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> this week on "q&a," a pulitzer prize-winning author talks about her new book detailing the migration of african-americans from the south between 1915 and 1970. it is entitled "the wharf of other sounds -- the warmth

of other suns." >> isabel wilkerson, author of "the warmth of other suns," do you remember the moment when you started thinking about doing this? >> i can't say what the moment was, because i've been living it all my life. my parents migrated from the south to washington, d.c. -- my mother from georgia and my father from southern virginia. and washington is where they met, married and then had me. so, without the great migration, i wouldn't be here. i don't know who you'd be talking to. so, i've lived with it all my life. i grew up with people from north carolina, south carolina, georgia -- all around me in the neighborhood where i grew up. and i was surrounded by the language, the food, the music, the ambitions, too, of the people who had migrated from the south. a lot of competition about who's child would go to which school, catholic school, the school across the park. so, it's been with me all this time.

but i think that, when it comes to the actual writing of a book, it probably started, very likely, after i had gotten out and been a reporter for the "new york times" and started to talk to people in other parts of the country. i was chicago bureau chief for the "new york times." and i would go to chicago. i'd be in cleveland, i'd be in detroit. and i'd begin to hear that there were similar migration experiences that people had. no one talked about it as a migration experience. they would just talk about it, as well. "i can't talk with you today or this weekend; we're going to have to go back to mississippi where there's a family reunion, or there's a funeral i have to go to." and so, i began to connect the dots and to see that this was so much bigger than just my experience to washington, or the experience of chicago, or even to los angeles. it was a national outpouring of people. >> just give us a brief synopsis of what the book is about. >> the book is about the migration experiences of three people who become representative of the larger whole, which was essentially the

defection of six million african americans from the south to the north, to the midwest and the west, from 1915, world war i, until 1970 when the south began truly to change. >> i went to a movie last weekend, and they handed me this as i'm going into the movie. i won't tell you what it was, but i want to read it to you. "every day, more migrants are coming into the cities to seek a better life for their children. the scale of this massive migration from the poor countryside to the burgeoning cities is unprecedented in human history. the migrants provide a constant and cheap source of labor for x country's "booming cities. and the thriving economy is built on the backs of those citizens." do you have any idea what country that is? >> well, it could be almost any -- it could be any country, but i'm thinking the united states and southerners. but i wrote this book with the idea that it would refer to almost any immigrant who had ever crossed the atlantic in

steerage or had crossed the pacific, the pacific ocean, in order to come here, or the rio grande. >> it actually is a movie called "the last train home," which is about china, where they have 130 million migrants that live in the cities and go back home once a year. it's the story of that trip. i want to read you what you have in your book up front. by richard wright. "i was leaving the south to fling myself into the unknown. i was taking a part of the south to transplant in alien soil, to see if it could grow differently, if it could drink of new and cool rains, bend in strange winds, respond to the warmth of other suns" -- that's the title of your book, "the warmth of other suns" -- "and perhaps to bloom." by richard wright. who was he? and why did you pick him to use your title? >> richard wright was one of the greatest novelists of the 20th century. he was a migrant from

mississippi to chicago. he grew up in natchez, mississippi, the son of a sharecropper, and always wanted to write. and he set out on a journey in 1927 to get to chicago. and he spent pretty much his entire career, almost everything he wrote had to do with understanding this migration experience that he was a part of, understanding his connection between the south and the north. >> but he moved to paris to die. i mean, he kind of gave up on the united states. >> he ultimately was searching for the warmth of other suns, really. and he kept moving and moving. he went to chicago. and then he went to new york, till eventually he left the country altogether in search of it. >> you say you interviewed 1,200 people. >> i stopped counting after that. >> where did you find them? and how did you find them? >> i was setting out looking for three people who would represent each of the three strains of the great migration. so, that took me to new york, chicago and los angeles to represent those three. and so, in all of those cities, i went to senior centers, i went to aarp meetings, i went

to quilting clubs. i went to baptist churches, catholic mass. i even had a booth at the juneteenth parade in los angeles -- a booth -- in order to collect the names of people who might have migrated from the south to the north. i was going to all these places where i might find people who were now seniors, and might have been participants in this migration. they were not hard to find. it's just a matter of going in and talking to them and hearing their stories. >> how did you gather the information? >> i took notes, obviously. and at that stage, it was essentially like an audition. it was like a casting call for these three people. >> what years were you doing this? >> this was begun -- it took me 15 years. so, this was basically 1995. and it took me about 18 months of interviewing, going from city to city, going from place to place, the prince hall masons -- all these different places, in order to find these three. one of the most interesting

sources of people were the state clubs that exist in all of these cities, meaning that -- and when you go to los angeles, there's a lake charles, louisiana, club. there's a monroe, louisiana, club. there are multiple texas clubs, multiple new orleans clubs. and so, you would find -- i had to find a way to get access to them. and then i would begin to interview them. that's where you were basically hitting the huge source of people who had all done exactly what you're looking for. the same goes for chicago where there's a greenville, mississippi, club. there's a greenwood, mississippi, club. there are the newton, mississippi, club, brookhaven, mississippi, club. so, all of these were options there. and in new york there are churches where almost everybody's from south carolina. >> what year did you decide on the three that you were going to focus on? >> i decided on the three finally in 1996. >> i'm going to -- i've got your bio here. i'm just going to read a couple things. tell me when i'm wrong. you spent about 11 years with the "new york times," 1984 to 1995.

you're at boston university right now teaching? >> yes. >> you live in atlanta. >> i live in both cities. >> commuting back and forth. >> yes. >> you taught at emory for three years, at princeton for two years. you've taught -- you graduated from howard here in washington, d.c. you also taught at harvard some, lectured, and at northwestern. why did you leave journalism? >> i don't consider myself to have left journalism. >> well, why did you leave the newspaper industry? >> oh, oh. i wanted to write this book. i wanted to explore the reasons why these people left, what was the legacy of what they did. i really wanted to understand who they were, why they did what they did, and capture them before it was too late. in other words, i was really feeling a great sense of urgency, because it began in 1915, and it ended in 1970. you're talking about at least three generations that were participants in this. and they were getting up in years, and time was running out.

so, i felt this real press of time to get to them while there was still time to tell the story. >> what kind of a home did you grow up in? and you say your mother from georgia, your father from virginia. well, what's their story? >> their story is, my mother came up to washington, d.c., toward the end of world war ii. she was a young girl. she found work in the government. you know, she was doing filing work and that sort of thing for the government. and obviously, there were many opportunities for people during world war ii. my father was a tuskegee airman. and after the war he came up to washington, as well. they obviously would never have met otherwise had they not come up. they both enrolled at howard university, which is where they met. they finally and eventually realized that they were the right people for one another and married. and then came me. >> brothers and sisters? >> i'm the only child that my mother ever gave birth to, because i was very late in her life. >> parents alive? >> father died, unfortunately,

before the book came out. and my mother is alive and has basically a shrine to the book in her >> in her home? >> in her home. >> here in washington? >> no, she's in atlanta now. >> ok. so, in the home, what did you talk about day-to-day with the family that got you into the journalism world? >> actually, they didn't talk about it. my father was a civil engineer. and my mother had been a teacher. so, journalism was not -- the idea of going into journalism was not anything that was ever discussed at all. i just had this affinity for writing and an affinity for english and for languages. i took french and german. i didn't -- i'm not good at them now, but i was interested in them. so, this was always my passion. and i was quite a curiosity to my parents, because there had never been any journalist in the family. i later -- my mother later told me a story involving my grandfather, her father, which

still gets to me about how he had wanted to be a writer. but essentially, there had been no one who had actually been able to go into this. and so, we didn't talk about it. all i do remember is that my father was a voracious reader of the newspaper, always had a newspaper. and it was always important to be reading the newspaper. >> you picked three people -- ida mae brandon gladney, george swanson starling and robert joseph pershing foster. >> yes. >> tell us something about ida mae brandon gladney. where did she come from? did you meet her? why did you pick her? >> she was from chickasaw county, mississippi. she was the wife of a sharecropper, where they were working the land of a planter in that county during the -- just before the depression. and once the depression hit they were still there.

she was terrible at picking cotton. and that was one of the things that actually was quite interesting to me. i never thought about a person being good or bad at it. it turned out that she was really bad at it and was glad to tell you that. she had a wonderful way of incorporating both the south and the north into her psyche. she never changed her accent from the moment she arrived in chicago. she spent more years in chicago -- three times more years in chicago -- than she did in mississippi. and yet, when i met her, i could barely understand her the first time. by the time i'd spent a little bit of time with her, i could almost imitate her. >> and so, how long did she live in mississippi? and how long did she live in chicago? >> she left mississippi when she was in her mid-20s. she left -- the family left, because there had been the beating of a cousin. a cousin of theirs, of her husband, was beaten nearly to death over a theft that he did not commit. >> this is the turkey story?

>> yes. and >> would you tell that whole story? >> one particular night when her husband -- before her husband had returned from his errands, there was pounding at the door of her cabin. and she had two young ones, and she had a sister-in-law living with her, so she was surprised to be getting this kind of noise up front. there were a posse of men at her door, and they were looking for a cousin of hers named joe lee -- a cousin of her husband's -- named joe lee. she said joe lee wasn't there. she didn't know that he actually had come into the house and then gone through the back way to get away from the posse. so she didn't know anything about what he'd done. when -- later on when the husband got back home, she told him what had occurred, and he went out to try to find out what had occurred. it was too late. joe lee had already been captured, and he was beaten with chains so badly that his clothes had adhered to his skin. and he was thrown in jail instead of taken to a doctor. and it was her husband who was

one of the people, one of the men, the male sharecroppers who went to retrieve him. and after seeing what had happened to his cousin, he then went home to his wife and he said, "this is the last crop we're making." >> what did they do then? >> they then, quietly between the two of them, began to try to divest of what little they had -- i mean, the wash pots and the kerosene lamps, the bed pallets, the things that they had. they then quietly went to their -- her mother's house to position themselves to leave. and as soon as the cotton was all picked, they got on the train, the night train out of okolona to up north, to first landing in chicago, so, briefly in milwaukee, and then ultimately settling in chicago. >> in what year did they actually leave mississippi? >> that would have been 1937. >> and by that time, how many had left the south? >> there would have been -- oh, there would have been about a million people who would have

left by that time, because there were about a half million in the first world war i migration. and then there were another half million, 480,000 or so, who left during the depression years, which is when she left, which is actually the smallest number for each decade. it really took off during world war ii, where that was the largest migration. each decade, or at each period of time during this migration, people who were studying it -- the sociologists, primarily -- were assuming that it would be over. they were looking at what was the impetus for it. and they were thinking the economics of the north were the main impetus. and, yes, that was a precipitating factor. but ultimately, once the door had been opened by the north -- because world war i was the beginning of it. world war i was a time when, because of the war in europe, immigration had essentially come to a halt. and all of the work force, the workers that were feeding the steel mills and the foundries, and all of the factories of the

north, then had no labor. and these northern industries then began looking to the south for the cheap labor. and that meant they had to go to african americans and began trying to recruit them to go north. >> what was, for ida mae brandon gladney, life like otherwise in mississippi? what kind of things couldn't she do that, say, white people could do? >> well, for one thing, she very rarely ventured out beyond where she was, because life was very controlled. i mean, they had so little free time, because they were working in the fields. that's one thing. so, her life was fairly isolated. but whenever she would go out, there were any number of things. every aspect of life was controlled then. there were no -- for example, the access to a physician was impossible. physicians did not come out to the country where she was. she would not have had access to that. overall in the south, jim crow had rules and laws that seem so arcane now. i mean, in some places it was

illegal for a black person and a white person to play checkers together, in certain places. and she did not herself work in such a place, because she worked in the field. but there were -- blacks and whites couldn't walk up the same staircase in certain places where they might have worked together. in certain courthouses there was a black bible and white bible to swear to tell the truth on. >> do you hear that story more than once? >> i heard that more than once. but there was a case where that it became an issue, because they had -- in north carolina -- because the judge -- they couldn't find the black bible. so, it became front page news in one of the north carolina newspapers that i came upon. and they couldn't find the black bible, so they had to halt the court proceedings. and the judge said, well, you know, we might as well follow what the law is, and let's find a bible. what had happened was, a black person had taken the stand, and they needed to find the right bible for him to swear to tell

the truth on. >> did you ever ask any of the old-time white people why they had such rules? >> i didn't spend a lot of time talking with a lot of the white people in this. there was a lot written about that already. and my focus was on trying to find the people who were not talked to. in other words, much of the material about the white perspective was widely disseminated. there are many, many, many wonderful books about it -- wilbur cash, "the mind of the wilbur cash, "the mind of the south." there are so many wonderful things that have been written that give a wonderful sense of how people were viewing it. the newspapers wrote endlessly, editorialists wrote endlessly about it. and i actually quote many of those as epigraphs in the chapters. >> got one here. >> yes. >> this is an editorial from the macon, georgia, "telegraph," september 1916. "everybody seems to be asleep about what is going on right under our noses. that is, everybody but those farmers who have awakened up on

mornings recently to find every negro over 21 on his place gone -- to cleveland, to pittsburgh, to chicago, to indianapolis. and while our very solvency is being sucked out beneath us, we go about our affairs as usual." that sounds like a liberal editorial in the deep south. why would they have that in a place like macon? >> well, there was a great angst, because if nothing was done to keep these people from leaving -- in other words, if the conditions did not change to make it more possible for them to stay -- they were going to lose their great source of labor. and that cheap labor was the underpinnings of the southern economy. they depended upon that. it's an expensive proposition and great peril, if you think about it, to plant an entire field of cotton and not know what would happen to it. i mean, i did -- at a certain point with this book, i was reading a book a day in research. and i read all about cotton production. and it's extremely difficult. it's a hazardous, difficult job. there are all kinds of things

that can go wrong. it requires just the right amount of rain, and not too much rain. it requires just the right number of days of sunshine, but not too much sunshine. there are so many factors that they were dependent upon -- actually, any farmer is dependent upon -- that the margin for error was so great, and they needed the hands available in order pick the cotton once it was there. they could not afford to be losing this labor. >> did i read near the end that you and ida mae went back down to mississippi >> yes. >> to the cotton fields? >> the late '90s, yes. >> what were the circumstances? >> the circumstances were that i wanted to go back with all of them. and her family and she were game, and they -- i made arrangements for us to go back. we drove down the natchez trace parkway to get there. we first flew into memphis, and then we drove down highway 61, legendary, and then made it to the natchez trace parkway. and as we were driving and drew closer to the county where she

lived, we came upon some cotton fields. i wanted to go back at the same time she would have left, which would have been about now. it was fall of the year, which is the high picking season in mississippi where she lived. and so, we saw this cotton field, wide open. there were no cars. and this is still isolated land really. and she wanted to get out and pick. and she said, "let's stop and pick some." and i said, "are you sure that we can do this? i mean, this land belongs to somebody. and we're in mississippi, besides." and she said, "oh, they're not going to care what little bit we want to pick." and so, she jumped out of the car and went out into the rows of cotton and started picking. and i went with her, still wary. and she seemed to be giddy. i mean, she hated picking cotton when she had to, but now that she didn't have to, it's almost like you couldn't stop her. >> what was her life like in chicago? >> in chicago they had a really

hard time making the adjustment. they had arrived as a part of a group of people from the south of those migrants with the least education, the least skills. and it didn't turn out for them as well -- and particularly for women. the men could find work, because strong backs were valued. they could find work in the slaughterhouses and the foundries and the steel mills. she had a much harder time, there weren't as great a need. there also were many immigrant groups that they were competing against. there were poles and hungarians and irish and swedes, all kinds of germans, who also were newly arrived. and they often were further along in the queue, particularly for the women when it came to domestic work. clearly, working in an office in a typing pool was not going to be something she would even be able to do. it took a very long time for her to be able to find work. and it took a long time for her husband to find work. at first he was hauling ice up four and five flights of those cold water flats on the south side of chicago. and he was willing to do it, because he'd had to haul that

much in cotton, so it was something that he did. but he couldn't -- it wasn't enough really to take care of the family. they moved a lot. they moved from place to place to place as they tried to find the right location for them that they could afford. they had a difficult time making the adjustment. >> how did she feel about the move in the end? >> in the end, she was the kind of person to accept her lot, no matter what it would have been. but for all of the people in the book, there are many mistakes that they might have made in their lives, but moving from the south was not one of them. >> they didn't regret it at all. >> no, not for a minute. >> and you say she died. and there's a little note in the back in 2004, and that they have -- the family has a room that's laid out in her honor? >> it's her bedroom. it's just her bedroom remained untouched. >> still to this day. >> just untouched. no one could bear to go in it. >> why? >> well, she was the matriarch of her family. she was one of the wisest and most beautiful people i've ever

met in my life. doing this book changed me in so many ways. she had a way of -- a kind of zen perspective, if you can say -- if you can imagine it, of accepting what was and recognizing what she couldn't change, and moving on and not living in the past. and she was beloved by everyone who knew her. and i know that that's said about a lot of people, but she was just a special person. i mean, when we returned south, for example, one of the things we did was we looked up one of the people, one of the -- she was being courted by two men, which is where the book begins when it comes to her narrative. and her decision of which of those two men was going to ultimately be the deciding point for her life. had she gone with one man, she wouldn't end up going to chicago. she didn't know it at the time, but that's what had been her lot. and that's what she chose. but the other man decided to stay. and when we went back to mississippi, we looked him up. and we found him. and he instantly recognized her. it had been 60 years.

and it's as if all those decades and the miles hadn't meant anything. and he saw her instantly, recognized her. and he just said, "how are you, ida mae?" and he reached for her arm. it was just a beautiful moment. and then his wife came out. >> were you there? >> yes, oh, of course. >> for that part of it? yes. >> oh, yes. >> how did you -- what was it about her when you met her, and how did you meet her, that made you choose her as one of three out of 1,200? >> well, her -- what i did was, you know, i went to many, many places i've described to you. and one of the places that i went was the retiree boards of the -- or unions -- of various trades. and so, i went to the retired -- the workers' -- people who had been retired from the cta, the chicago transit authority. i went to postal workers and such. such. so, when i went to the retirees

meeting for the cta, i passed around the flyer that i'd pass around and made my little statement. and there was a woman there who signed up. there were many people who signed up, because most of them were from the south or had relatives from the south. and a woman said, "i didn't actually make the decision to come to the south -- to come from the south to chicago. but my mother did." and so, it was her daughter who signed her up. and when i met with her, she was wonderful. she was fine. >> did you know on the spot that she was going to be one of your three? >> i knew that i had a connection with her, but i tend to be really very methodical. so, it took a while before i could actually -- i narrowed it down to 30, and she was clearly in one of the 30. and in the writing of this book, which is a narrative, it was essential that the three characters be easily distinguishable. you could turn to the page and

be in their chapter and know who you're reading about. it was also important that they be from different backgrounds. in other words, i didn't want them to all be sharecroppers. i didn't want them all to be middle class or working class. i wanted them to be distinctive. and so, they all become one, because they all complement one another. so, it wouldn't have been a situation where with almost any of them i would say, this is absolutely one. it took me some time to actually look at all three, the circumstances of all three. where did they begin? where did they land? what kinds of things did they do? what were their personalities? and that was how the three came. it was almost as if you have to have a board on which you have all of their characteristics. and you say, these will be the three that together will make the whole for the narrative. >> and you had one that left in the '30s, one in the '40s, one in the '50s. >> yes. >> one went to new york, one went to chicago, one went to l.a. let's go on to the second person, george swanson starling. he went from florida to new york. who is he? >> he was a -- he was a college student at the time that the migration situation became

relevant for him. he had dropped out -- he had had to drop out of school, because at that time african americans could not go to the state schools that were -- they were segregated, and he couldn't go to them. so, there was one school he could go to, but it was far from home. and his family decided that they weren't going to keep sending him. his father decided he wasn't going to keep sending him, that he'd had enough schooling. and so, therefore, he had to go back to the primary work for people in his part of florida, which is central florida, which is picking citrus. when he got out into the groves in the way that he did, he began to realize that they were being greatly taken advantage of. the working conditions were poor and the pay was worse. they were being paid 10 to 12 cents a box for many, many -- for dangerous work going into the 30-foot trees on spliced ladders, on limbs where sometimes people would fall in

the process of trying to pick. and he began to try to organize the pickers, because this was world war ii, to make a little bit more money. he would be asking for a nickel more a box as opposed to the 10 or 15 cents. and this was a time when each of those boxes was commanding $3 or $4 on the open market once they ultimately sold. so, he was just asking for a nickel more. and he would go, and he would speak on behalf of all the pickers. he had a very hard time keeping them organized. i mean, all of them wanted to say, well, while we're here, why don't we just go ahead and pick. and he'd have to keep them at bay to say, well, you know, it worked last week, so let's try it again this week. >> how old would he have been in 1945 when he left? >> he would have been 24 or 25. >> he would have been 24 or 25. he was born in 1918, '20. >> so, what was the impetus for him to leave? >> the impetus for him to leave was that the grove owners began

plotting against him, because they did not like unions anyway, which is what this was ultimately becoming. and even his relatives told him that this is dangerous what he was doing. and he had to basically flee for his life. >> how did he go? >> he caught the train. he was very careful about not making himself too visible in those hours and days before he left. >> did he just -- i mean, what time of day did he leave? >> he left when the train would have left, which would have been in the afternoon, late in the afternoon. i mean, he could only go when the trains were leaving. he was leaving for wildwood, florida. >> would anybody have tried to stop him? >> they did not apparently try to stop him. he actually discreetly asked a friend of his if he would take him to the train station. and they drove carefully so as not to attract attention. in other words, he did not want to let anyone know that he was preparing to leave. and so, he was very careful about that. >> where did he go first?

>> he went to harlem. he had previously -- and which is what you may be getting to -- he had previously tried detroit and found that he did not -- detroit was not going to work for him, because he -- there had been a riot. he actually got -- he was there at sort of a bad time when there was a riot. and that sort of scared him off, and he went back to florida. and then, this last time, he ended up going to new york. >> along the way, where were these folks getting their money? >> they had saved up. i mean, they had been saving. i mean, they lived such meager lives. george starling in particular, his father actually was the owner of a little corner store. he didn't have lots of money, but they had some means of being able to save something for them. george starling himself was quite frugal. and during the days when they were actually winning in those groves, he was saving a lot of money. they were making so much more money than they had before. >> what did he do when he got to harlem? how did he make his

money there? >> interestingly, he took a job as a railroad porter, where he ended up going right back to the south that he had sworn he'd never go back to. he found no trouble finding work, because being male gave him something of an advantage in that era. and he also -- it was during world war ii when he left, as opposed to ida mae, who left during the depression. so, life was so much easier. so, he found a job as a railroad porter and went back and forth. and there are lots and lots of stories of him going back and forth, observing the migration and then running into -- the experience of going back south. in other words, going from a place that was free, and then having to adjust oneself whenever he went back to the south. >> what were the adjustments? >> well, one of the adjustments was that the conductors often, if they were southern, they

would often mistreat some of the porters. and he got on the bad side of one of the -- he got on the bad side of one of the conductors. and there was a perilous moment for him in which the conductor did not like what they thought was -- what he thought was an imperious dignity that george starling had. and he thought that was not proper for an african american male, that he should be a little bit more -- a little bit more, i guess, humble, maybe. but george starling had more education than a lot of the people he would be around, so he couldn't help that he'd read a lot. and he just couldn't help being himself. and he didn't like playing the game of being sort of the shuffling sidekick. and that didn't go over well with some of the southern conductors. there's a moment where the southern conductor actually pushed him while the train was moving. and george accidentally, or was basically between the train and the conductor, was hurled over a white woman, an older white woman. and to the startlement of both him and the woman. and the woman was quite understanding. she said, "well, why would he do that?" and she spoke with the conductor. and george said to her, "well, he's southern and he just does those kinds of things. and, you know, if you don't think this is a good thing, i would so appreciate it if you

would write in, because there's nothing that i can do. i can't do anything about it." >> now, you use through the book language like "colored people," at some points, "negroes," "blacks," and then "african americans." what was your approach there? >> the approach was that i wanted the reader to be in the moment whenever something was happening. that meant, if i was talking about what it meant to be picking cotton or getting on a jim crow train, i wanted you to be able to imagine yourself there. and the language all around them would have been that. all the signs said colored or white, so i thought it would be more consistent while we were in that era to be talking that way. >> define jim crow. >> jim crow was a caste system in which the -- in which african americans were controlled. their every move was controlled. but it also was something that hurt white people as well, because a caste, if you think about it, the word caste can have multiple meanings. and it means a fixed thing.

i mean, if you have a cast on your arm, it means you cannot move. and it meant that whites and blacks could not move freely within their own society actually. it's perceived as being something that hurt black people. but i believe that it actually hurt both. >> where did the name come from? >> the name comes from a 19th century minstrel figure. it was a song that was called "jump jim crow." and it was made popular by a minstrel performer who would go all around the country, got quite rich by doing this. and he had actually picked up on that by seeing the common view, the most common view is that he saw a slave who had been -- who was disabled, at the time they would have called him crippled -- who was unable to actually dance properly. i mean, he wasn't able to walk well. and then, he was doing this dance called "jump jim crow."-- "jumping jim crow." and that this -- and that the

minstrel performer who performed in black face all over the country ended up imitating him and getting quite rich over it. the interesting thing is that he ended up dying quite young in his 50s. and he had been paralyzed at the end of his life. an interesting thing, that he himself ended up being disabled. it's one of those odd quirks of history that he kind of suffered from the very thing he'd been making fun of all those years. >> were the laws different in every state? >> each state, each community had its own rules. >> were there jim crow laws in the north? >> there were some jim crow laws in the north, but they weren't -- actually, jim crow actually began in massachusetts. it was the first place to have segregated rail cars. but it wasn't called jim crow at the time. jim crow was something that was actually applied more in the north. >> are there any jim crow laws left anywhere? >> i'm not aware of any. >> what was the year you would say that they went away?

>> it would have been in the 1970s -- very late, believe it or not. there was a sheriff in lake county, which is where george starling was from, sheriff willis mccall. and he refused to take down the colored and white signs in his office, in his sheriff's office, until the '70s. he was actually voted out of office by, you know, by the people, which the demographics had changed by then. many northerners had come in. >> george starling still alive? >> no. >> where did you find him? how did you find him? and what was the end of his life like? >> he was a deacon in the church, which is where he had found a kind of peace for a difficult life that he had had. and so, he was very easy to find. he was actually at the baptist house of prayer in harlem, and instantly began to tell stories about his experiences. >> so, how did you find him? >> oh, found him at the church. >> and you just showed up at the church and said, here i am, i'm looking for people?

>> i had an assistant who was working with me. and she was the first to make contact with him. and when i told him -- when i heard about him, i instantly wanted to talk with him. and i did. >> by the way, there are no pictures in your book. >> no pictures. >> why not? >> both my editor and i simultaneously agreed there should be no pictures. and that's because we wanted people to lose themselves in the narrative, to imagine themselves in the hearts and minds of these people, to think about, what would you have done if you were in that situation -- black or white, whatever the situation might have been. and we thought that the photographs, by attaching a photograph to it, would be something of a distraction to people as they tried to absorb themselves in the narrative. >> can we ever see these? >> on the web site. >> now, i've been on the web site, and i saw there's a young lady on there? >> yes. >> so, that is ida mae? >> that's my mother. >> that's your mother? >> yes, it is. she is standing >> yes. >> on 16th street at meridian hill. she is newly arrived in washington, d.c., and she sees

a sign on the sidewalk. and it says, "no standing." and she's pointing to it, and her head is to the side. and she's so happy and jubilant and free. and she's basically pointing and saying, i'm standing here at the no standing sign, and i'm not in the south. i'm in washington, the capital of the union. and i'm free. >> i also saw a picture of a man sitting down? >> yes. >> who's that? >> that man -- well, there's several men. i don't know which one you're speaking of. but there's one man in a flight suit. is that who you're speaking of? >> no, but that would be your father. >> yes, that's my father, the tuskegee airman. >> yes, i don't think so. but actually, i couldn't find any other photos. how do you find them, the people? >> well, they're not all

uploaded. and i'm on book tour and haven't uploaded them all yet. but i can assure you, they'll all be up there. i have some great photographs of them -- wonderful photographs. >> how did george starling die? >> he died somewhat heartbroken, because his children had in some ways been swallowed up by the north that he had fled to. and in fact, they went back south. and he died heartbroken, but still strong. but he had a -- he had a brain -- he essentially had a stroke. and i went to see him in the hospital. hospital. he went into a coma. and he was in new york. i went into the room. he was hooked up to all kinds of machines. and i went, and i squeezed his hand. and i told him that i was there, and he squeezed it back. he never regained consciousness. >> so, what happened to his kids? >> his son, the oldest son, who had been sort of a lost child, had gone up to see him in the hospital, too. he was in a coma by that time,

george starling. and the son saw him in that state, and he himself was diabetic. and he was so distraught, that he -- hadn't been getting his dialysis that he needed. he had all kinds of things that were wrong with him. and he essentially gave up. and he died before his own father died, and his father didn't know it. he died like a week before his father died. he just refused to go to dialysis. and so, george starling left this earth not knowing that his son had died before him. >> the third person that you focus on is robert joseph pershing foster. >> yes. >> and i understand that the pershing comes from john j. pershing >> yes. >> "black jack" pershing. >> yes, absolutely. it was the end of world war i when he was born. and his mother -- he was, you know, the hero of the day.

and his mother wanted her son, her last baby, to have this important name that would be in commemoration of the bigig hero of the day. >> i also looked him up to see that he taught african americans -- i mean, pershing did, the general, before he got involved in the war. >> i didn't realize that. that's amazing, too. >> and that he was so tough, that they used the "n" word to define him. and that crossed over to be calling him "black jack," and they meant that. i mean, there was -- a lot of the soldiers thought he was tough, and that was a negative. >> yes. i can't say whether his mother was aware of that. i would doubt that she would have been. i think that she -- one of the things i write about is that there was -- the whole naming of a child was a very special thing for these parents in the south, because there was very little else that they could give their children. they didn't often have resources anyway. so, they often had these imperious sounding names -- queen, admiral, major.

or if they were being particularly, feeling very militant, they'd name them someone like ulysses from ulysses s. grant, or something, because that was a way of sort of affixing greatness to their children. and so, her choosing pershing had a great meaning for her, because that was -- he was born toward the end of world war i, in 1918. >> because that's a -- in your book, that's a point. >> yes. >> he left louisiana, monroe, louisiana. went to los angeles? >> he went to los angeles, yes. >> but -- i don't want to hear about him until you tell us your story about you and your parents in a car. give us that whole thing. sleeping in a car? >> what i ended up doing was, dr. foster told me the whole story about his migration, which, of course, as you say, we can get into a little bit later. and after hearing it, i realized that, in order for me to truly understand it, i needed to recreate it myself. and so, what i did was, i made

arrangements to drive out there. i thought it'd be a wonderful way for me to be able to -- my parents were retired by then and always up for an adventure. and so, they decided that they would want to go with me. and so, we set out on a course to recreate his journey. the journey took him from monroe, louisiana. the he took a -- he went to houston, and then he veered into mexico, because he wanted to taste the tequila. that's a whole other story about him. and then, it was going to take him through texas -- a long, perilous drive through texas, which is a country unto itself, essentially -- and then on through new mexico, and on and on. what he had not anticipated was he was going to have much more trouble finding a place to rest than he had anticipated once he got out. >> so, what year did you drive it? >> i drove that in around 1999, maybe. >> and did you actually spend time overnight in the car? >> what we did was, we just kept -- well, this is what happened. we drove, to the letter, everything that he had -- all the places, del rio in texas, and on to el paso. and then we got to phoenix,

which is where he had trouble. we could not stop, because i was trying to recall to the letter what he did. we ended up driving and continuing to drive. it got dark. the roads got mean. there were hairpin turns. it was getting dark. i was getting sleepy. i told my parents the ground rules were, you cannot drive. my father, it was all he could do to keep from taking the wheel from me. i said, well, you remember what the rule was; i have to drive the whole way. it got worse the further you drove, because the settlements were farther apart. it was dark. and we were now in the rocky mountains, once you get to a certain point. and when we got to yuma, arizona, i was feeling the full effects of no sleep, which had been from houston, essentially. and he -- you know, your fingers begin to get swollen, and they ache. your eyes get heavy. your eyelids want to close.

everything in your body wants to sleep. and yet, you've got to be alert for these hairpin curves around what at that time would have been no guard rails along those lines. and when we got to yuma, arizona, my parents said, "for all of our sakes, you must stop driving, and we're going to find a place to stay. we've lived it, and it's not necessary. we will stop. you must stop." and so, we stopped in yuma, where we had no trouble at all, because it was no longer 1953. >> when he went across the country, had he become a medical doctor yet? >> oh, yes. he was a physician. he'd been in the army in the korean war. and he had performed surgery in austria. but when he got back, when he was discharged, he found that he could not work in a hospital in his own home town. >> why? >> because of the laws of jim crow. there were no -- hospitals did not black people to be doctors -- did not permit black people

to be doctors -- to perform any kind of medical work in a hospital. he had a brother who was a physician, too. and his brother found a way around it. i mean, he couldn't work in a hospital, either. hospital, either. it was understood that they couldn't. he had actually -- the brother had tried and couldn't, wouldn't be accepted there. and so, he created a portable -- basically, a portable hospital office in a car that he would carry around with him. he had essentially, you know, a kind of bed that someone could lay on, and he had all the supplies in the trunk of his car. and he would go out in the country and serve the people who were the sharecroppers out in the country. but pershing did not want that for himself. he wanted to be able to have everything he'd been exposed to in the army. he had had a distinguished career in the army, and he wanted to be able to live out a life as he imagined it. and so, he set out on this journey, not anticipating that he would run into the trouble. he would run into the trouble. in fact, at a certain point,

that passage is just so heartbreaking to me and to some people who have read it. he had to question whether he'd made the right decision. but it was too far -- he'd gone too far >> what trouble did he run into? >> he found that no one would allow him to stay in a hotel for the night. he had the money to do it. he had the standing to do it. he was an american citizen. he was well beyond what would be viewed as the reach or the boundaries of jim crow. by this time he was in the state of arizona. >> this is 1953. >> this is 1953. and no one would take him in. >> nowhere in arizona. >> no place that he stopped would they take him. >> did they tell him why? >> the first people did not tell him why. he stopped over and over and over again. and ultimately, the last place he went, he ran into some people who were from illinois originally. and they thought about it. actually, the wife had seen him first, and it gave him hope that he might be able to stay for the night there, that he might have finally met someone who would let him stay.

but ultimately, she went back to talk with her husband. they talked for a long time. then they came out and they said, "we're from illinois, and said, "we're from illinois, and we don't share the views of the people around here. but we would be ostracized if we take you in. we just can't do it." >> were you surprised to find out that the west was this way? >> i was surprised that it was as hardened as it was. i figured that you would find -- i mean, there would be resistance many places. i mean, the people met great resistance wherever they went, because they were wanted by the industries, but not by necessarily the people that they would encounter, who would see them as, really, competition -- economic competition. wherever these people went -- dr. foster was a little different, because he was a physician, clearly. but for the most part, these were workers who were used to much lower pay. that meant that wherever they went, they were kind of -- there was a potential for them to drive down the wages of those people who were around them. so, many of them were used as strike breakers. so, there was a lot of resistance to their arrival.

they had to put up with a lot -- as many immigrants do when they arrive in this country. and so, i was not surprised that there would be resistance. i was surprised that he ran into as much as he did, just trying to find a room. >> where did you see him, meet with him and spend time with him? >> it's interesting. he's probably one of the most interesting -- the way that i met him was probably the most interesting of all. i spent a great deal of time in los angeles, talking to any number of groups that i could find who were connected to the south, connected to louisiana and to texas. and i ran at all these different clubs -- the lake charles, louisiana, club, and all of the various creole clubs -- so many different places. so, i went to so many places, that at one point, a woman came up to me and she said, "you know, i've seen you at so many of these places talking to people about this migration. and i've heard the questions you've been asking. and i see that you're still here, so maybe you're still looking." and she said, "i know just the perfect person for you to talk

to." and usually when someone says that to you, you're thinking, it's almost like someone setting you up on a blind date. i mean, you just figure there's no way in the world they could possibly know who you really want. i met with him at his home in los angeles, a lovely home, which was a testament to his achievement and his success in los angeles -- after all that he gone through. and he had a hard time even getting established. he was quite gracious, presented me with ice cream and cake, which i did not want nor need, but sat there and watched me eat every morsel of it, because it was on rosenthal china, and that's just the way that he did things. and then he proceeded to tell me that -- i told him about what i was doing. he said, "i love to talk, and i am my favorite subject." >> was he married? >> he had been married. he was a widow, as were all three of the people that i ended up talking to. >> how old was he when you got to him? >> he was in his 70s. he was, like, maybe 76. >> what's the vegas story? >> the vegas story. >> when he wanted to go to vegas, but they wouldn't

>> so many vegas stories. >> but they wouldn't let him -- i mean, he wasn't allowed to go? or, i mean >> yes, what happened was, they -- vegas was off limits to african americans. and he was getting this needling from the other doctors. at a certain point he was able to actually find a job working in a hospital in los angeles, the very thing he had wanted to do in new orleans. and so, the white physicians would come back and regale one another with stories of caesar's, or wherever they'd been to, or palm springs. and they'd always ask him, "well, have you been there yet?" and he said, "well, you know that i can't go. of course i haven't been, you know. don't ask me anymore, because it makes me feel bad. and i want to go, but i can't." and so, sometimes they'd forget, and then he'd say that again. and eventually he began to make some calls, and he found out that -- he heard from someone that it was beginning to open up to african americans. this was in the mid '50s. and he got the name of a connection, a man named jimmy gay, who actually became famous for being a person who would help be a go-between, an

intermediary, helping black people to get rooms in hotels. they weren't permitted in the hotels. so, anyway, he heard about this man named jimmy gay. he called jimmy gay and said, "we'd like to bring a party of 12 or so. we're so excited about being able to come to vegas." this was always his dream. he ended up being a really big gambler. and he -- jimmy gay said, "sure, just tell me when and where." and he made the arrangements for them to go to a place called the riviera hotel, which was brand new. it had all of the latest conveniences. it was a big deal. there were songs about it in los angeles, and he used to sing the songs to himself, just in anticipation of going. when they got there, they had all this luggage. the women had been packing for weeks. they got there, and there was no indication that there was a room for them. and he began to have recollections of the experiences he'd had crossing the desert, that night long -- not that long before. and he ended up having to call this man and make arrangements.

and eventually, they got him in another hotel, the sands. and once he got there, he remembered finally being able to get to the roulette wheel. and he'd had this special suit that he had. and he said, he bent over to play the wheel, and he had -- he was quite a character. he had like a blood red lining inside of this black satin suit he was wearing. and he just said that he essentially was in heaven. that was where he'd always wanted to be. >> we don't have a lot of time. you said earlier this changed your life. in what way? >> it changed my life, because it helped to answer so many questions for me about how the country came to be, about how african americans made it to the north and west. in other words, the majority of people that you might meet who are african american in the north and the west are descended from this great migration. that's an enormous thing that i don't think people even thought

about. it also reminded me of how much we have in common with one another. when i was growing up here in washington, my mother went to the trouble of making sure that i went to the best schools she could find, which was a school west of the park. we lived east of the park. it was west of the park. and she actually arranged for a cab to take me there. i was five years old, and she would tell the cab driver, "now, don't pick anyone else up. this is -- i see your cab number. i'm going to pay you. bring her right back home." and the cab was always there waiting for me. the cab would always look like it was empty, because it had a five-year-old in it. so, she always wanted to make sure they didn't pick up anyone else. when i got to the school, though, i would run into all kinds of people, people who were from all over the country, from nepal -- and they were often diplomats' children -- from san salvador or from chile, or from finland -- from all over. and even those who were american-born were descended from people from ireland, scotland, or wherever they might have been -- germany or russia. and on certain days, particularly like st. patrick's day, there were all

stories that people were telling about life in the old country, or grandparents that had done this or done that, or the food. and i felt at that time that i didn't have any stories to tell. and it turned out that actually i did, and that there were many, many great stories that came out of this great migration. >> along the way, have you had time to get married or have a family? >> i have been married. i'm not married now. >> any children? >> no. >> what's been -- when you look back on this thing, what's the toughest part of it? and how did you survive financially during all this time? >> well, the random house was wonderful. i had an advance. that was help toward it, a great help. but i also got a guggenheim that contributed to it. and i also taught. i taught at princeton. i taught at emory. i continued to write periodically for the "new york times," which was where i spent most of my career. so, i did a lot of things to help supplement. >> what's next? >> los angeles. and more talking about the book, because this book was a

book that was written to be read. i'm happy to see people buying it, and it's done really well. but i really want people to read it, because we have so much more in common, and i think there's a lot to learn from it -- and also to enjoy it. they're beautiful people. >> and if we see the pictures, will we have a change of feeling about these folks? >> no, it will confirm what you already know, and what you've already learned from having read it. >> isabel wilkerson. the name of the book is "the warmth of other suns: the epic story of america's great migration." thank you very much for joining us. >> thank you for having me. >> for a dvd copy of this program, call1-877-62-7726.

for free transit or to give us your comments, visit us at our website. our programs are also available as podcasts. host[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> british prime minister nick clegg speaks at this week's labour party conference. after that, newt gingrich. then it mitt romney talked to new hampshire republicans. >> tomorrow on "washington journal," washington post national political con -- correspondent talks about this year's midterm elections, danielle pletka discusses the conservative views of national defence and funding for efforts outside of the united states, and george mason university professor david armor looks at

the impact of school desegregation on school districts and overall education. "washington journal" is live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> the c-span video library is in the news. they write that journalist on a deadline are using and not so secret source -- the c-span video library with nearly every program since 1987, it is a great place to look for historical videos or to do educational research. you can find it all free and online any time. >> the british house of commons was in recess this week. the british deputy prime minister and liberal democrat leader nick clegg spoke at his party's gathering monday in liverpool, defending his decision to form a coalition government with the conservative party and listed their top priority is cutting public spending. he also talked about reforming