Wilkerson follows the stories of three black Americans who move from the South to 1) Los Angeles 2) Chicago 3) NY during the 20th C. She interweaves their stories with general information about this mass migration which has changed the face of the nation.
By telling the story this way, Wilkerson puts faces on the kinds of stories that statistics never can. Although this book is full of detail, I did not find myself skimming along, as I do in *ahem* some books. The life stories are compelling, full of rich detail, sad as many of them are. Even though the stories start before I was born, they are still continuing either because the people in them are still alive, or because their family members are still shaped by the decisions these people made to leave their homes in the South.
As I finished up this book and looked over the books I've read so far in 2012, I put a little star by it, meaning that it is one of my favorite books of the year. I usually have about 3-5 stars a year. I kept putting it off because of its heft, but with the slowdown of book clubs in the summer, I was ready to tackle it.
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