This is the story of the migration of African Americans from the rural south to the north and west. Between 1915 and 1970, about 6 million people moved, often risking violence by leaving, even into the 1970s. Wilkerson found 3 individuals to represent this journey, and weaves their stories in and out of the more general history.

You know when you're reading a suspenseful novel, and the author is switching between different story lines, and you flip ahead to see what happens next to one character? Well, this history had me doing that. Wilkerson gives you the history, but roots is so firmly in individuals, families, and places that it lives and breathes. I'm a lazy reader. I rarely read nonfiction, and mostly read novels that have a plot that pulls me along. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and the tales woven through it are still in my mind 7 months later.

Isabel Wilkerson won a Pulitzer prize as a journalist, and this book was picked as one of The New York Times Book Review's 10 Best Books of the Year — deservedly so.