Latest One Book, One Chicago: 'The Warmth Of Other Suns'

By Amy Cavanaugh in Arts & Entertainment on Mar 17, 2013 8:00PM

The latest iteration of the Chicago Public Library's One Book, One Chicago, which features discussions, performances, lectures, and other events, has expanded to a full year. The first book to benefit from the year of study is Isabel Wilkerson's The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration.

The book, which was a National Book Critics Circle Award Winner and a New York Times Top 10 Best Book of the Year, was published in 2011. It focuses on black migration out of the American South to the urban North and West between World War I to the 1970s. The movement became known as the "Great Migration" and set in motion the civil rights movement and impacted art, literature, and music.

Wilkerson herself has ties to Chicago—she won the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing when she was the Chicago bureau chief of The New York Times. One Book, One Chicago will focus on how migration affected the city. Among the many events, a panel on April 17, The New Chicagoans, looks at how migration continues to affect the city in the 21st century, and an exhibit at the Woodson Regional Library focuses on Rev. Addie Wyatt’sf fight for labor, civil rights and women’s rights.

Check out the spring line-up of events here.