A New Beginning In the book “The Warmth of Other Suns”, Isabel Wilkerson describes in great detail how life was for blacks in the south in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Ida Mae, George Starling, and Robert Pershing Foster were the main characters used to set the plot. Wilkerson explains the terrible conditions that these three and many others had to grow up in. This was when white people had every authority over black people. They could treat them like dirt for absolutely no reason or accuse them for something they didn’t do and take action without questioning. As bad as those few things sound, it got a lot worse, causing black people to leave in order to find a better life. This was known as The Great Migration. Two chapters
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They finally had a chance to do something with their lives and have jobs such as being a physician or an insurance man. Things were finally looking up until the mid-1870s when the South began using the caste system. This meant that everything was going downhill from there. Black people were not allowed to sit in certain spots on the bus, they weren’t allowed to get an education, and they got killed for crazy things such as “acting like a white person”. Wilkerson mentioned a man named Jesse Washington who was burned alive in 1916. Tons of people of all ages gathered around to watch this happen. Men even had their children on their shoulders so they could get a better view. This gives you a vivid idea of how cruel white people were. They killed black people like it was their job and, even worse, they enjoyed it. Soon enough, the Jim Crow laws were enacted, giving black people even less rights such as where they can sit in public, when they have to be off of the streets, what staircase they went up, and …show more content…
It gives you a taste of when he was younger, when he was older, and everything in between. The second chapter starts out with how George’s life ended up after leaving Florida for New York. He ended up as a widower in a cluttered apartment including some furniture, pictures, and boxes full of his life regrets. He thinks back to everyone he encountered growing up, all of the good and bad things he did and that were done to him. Reading this, i understood the way this moment was portrayed. It was a man sitting there thinking back on his life and how rough everything was. He couldn’t escape it for so long, and now he is finally out. Most would be sitting there letting out a sigh of relief. George is thinking back to how living in the South changed him forever. He is out, but he continues to live his childhood over and over again in memories. “A smile lifts his face at the absurdities of the world he left, and which, in some ridiculous way, he still loves. Then his eyes well up over all that they have seen” (Wilkerson, pg.
They finally had a chance to do something with their lives and have jobs such as being a physician or an insurance man. Things were finally looking up until the mid-1870s when the South began using the caste system. This meant that everything was going downhill from there. Black people were not allowed to sit in certain spots on the bus, they weren’t allowed to get an education, and they got killed for crazy things such as “acting like a white person”. Wilkerson mentioned a man named Jesse Washington who was burned alive in 1916. Tons of people of all ages gathered around to watch this happen. Men even had their children on their shoulders so they could get a better view. This gives you a vivid idea of how cruel white people were. They killed black people like it was their job and, even worse, they enjoyed it. Soon enough, the Jim Crow laws were enacted, giving black people even less rights such as where they can sit in public, when they have to be off of the streets, what staircase they went up, and …show more content…
It gives you a taste of when he was younger, when he was older, and everything in between. The second chapter starts out with how George’s life ended up after leaving Florida for New York. He ended up as a widower in a cluttered apartment including some furniture, pictures, and boxes full of his life regrets. He thinks back to everyone he encountered growing up, all of the good and bad things he did and that were done to him. Reading this, i understood the way this moment was portrayed. It was a man sitting there thinking back on his life and how rough everything was. He couldn’t escape it for so long, and now he is finally out. Most would be sitting there letting out a sigh of relief. George is thinking back to how living in the South changed him forever. He is out, but he continues to live his childhood over and over again in memories. “A smile lifts his face at the absurdities of the world he left, and which, in some ridiculous way, he still loves. Then his eyes well up over all that they have seen” (Wilkerson, pg.