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Virtual Book Club Discussion: The Warmth of Other Suns
Thu, October 27th, 2022 at 12:00 PM
The NOMA Book Club meets monthly to discuss fiction and nonfiction books related to art in NOMA’s collection and exhibitions. It is an informal group open to anyone on a month-to-month basis. You do not have to attend every meeting or read every book! In addition to monthly virtual book discussions, the Book Club meets periodically in person for curatorial programs related to the book selections.
Books are selected in advance and planned for the entire year according to the exhibition schedule. Participants are expected to procure their own copy of the selected titles. Most of the titles are available for purchase in store at the NOMA Museum Shop.
For more information on the NOMA Book Club please contact NOMA’s Curator of Education, Tracy Kennan, at tkennan@noma.org or (504) 658-4113.
October 2022
Virtual Book Discussion Group | Thursday, October 27, 12 PM
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson
2010, Random House, ISBN: 978-0679444329
From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America. Isabel Wilkerson compares this epic migration to the migrations of other peoples in history. With stunning historical detail, she tells this story through the lives of three unique individuals: Ida Mae Gladney, who in 1937 left sharecropping and prejudice in Mississippi for Chicago, where she achieved quiet blue-collar success; sharp and quick-tempered George Starling, who in 1945 fled Florida for Harlem, where he endangered his job fighting for civil rights; and Robert Foster, who left Louisiana in 1953 to pursue a medical career, and became the personal physician to Ray Charles.
Wilkerson brilliantly captures their first treacherous and exhausting cross-country trips by car and train, and how they changed the cities with southern food, faith, and culture. Both a riveting microcosm and a major assessment, The Warmth of Other Suns is a superb account of an “unrecognized immigration” within our own land.
Education and outreach initiatives at NOMA are supported in part by the Zemurray Foundation; the Lois and Lloyd Hawkins Jr. Foundation; The Helis Foundation; The Gayle and Tom Benson Foundation; The City of New Orleans; IBERIABANK; The Wagner Foundation; Janice Parmelee and Bill Hammack; the Diversifying Art Museum Leadership Initiative, funded by the Walton Family Foundation and the Ford Foundation; Sara and David Kelso; Patrick F. Taylor Foundation; Dr. Scott S. Cowen; The RosaMary Foundation; The Azby Fund; the Louisiana Division of the Arts, Office of Cultural Development, Department of Culture, Recreation & Tourism, in cooperation with the Louisiana State Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts, a Federal agency; The Collins C. Diboll Private Foundation; Burkenroad Foundation; Marian Dreux Van Horn Education Endowment; The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; Ruby K. Worner Trust through the PNC Charitable Trusts Grant Review Committee; The Harry T. Howard III Foundation; New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and Foundation, Inc.; Harvey and Marie Orth; The Bruce J. Heim Foundation; and Mrs. Bennett A. Molter, Jr. This project is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.