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Leon Bibb: A personal connection to 'The Warmth of Other Suns' through Hough Reads

The book, 'The Warmth of Other Suns,' could have been my parents' stories as well.

CLEVELAND -- Each one of these people listens to a reader recite from a book which easily could have been part of the life story of each person here.

The elderly listeners hear stories which seem so familiar.

On a quiet corner of Cleveland's Hough neighborhood are residents at the Eliza Bryant Village -- a home for the aged. The words which hold them are from "The Warmth of Other Suns." The book chronicles the lives of three black families who migrated from the American South to cities in the North and West.

This project is called Hough Reads. It focuses on a community with a mission to encourage reading and improve the literacy rate. Today, volunteers read from Isabel Wilkerson's Pulitzer Prize-winning book.

►MORE | Stories from Leon Bibb

Here, 20th century stories of migrating black families unfold. For the Eliza Bryant Village residents, the sagas leap from the pages. Many of the residents identify for theirs are the same stories of having left the South for better lives in the industrial North and opening West.

But there is more to the lesson.

"It lets them know that their stories do matter,” says WKYC’s Margaret Bernstein, who is the brainchild of the project. “And I think that came across at that event."

The goal is to increase literacy, appreciation and love of the written word.

"I read that book,” she said. “It touched me. My grandparents lived that story."

This story takes a personal turn for me. My parents were part of the Great Migration. Both left their homes in Alabama and found new lives in Cleveland. My father, Leon Bibb, and my mother, Georgia Crowell, migrated to 1940 Cleveland.

The book, “The Warmth of Other Suns,” could have been my parents’ stories as well.

So the old graying images of my parents in their youth leap from old photographs. When married with the words about the Great Migration, I get a better picture of the way they were.

Many of the residents of this Cleveland facility have their own images -- many of them mental which they call upon as the story of the migration of people unfolds.

By blood, I am a descendant of the Great Migration. A reading circle, yes -- but more than that. Story of a people's history. And of a city. And nation.

Between 1916 and 1970, more than six million blacks migrated from the South to the North and West for better jobs and conditions. The movement changed the face of Cleveland and much of America.

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