Parting the Waters; America in the King Years, 1954-63
New York: Simon and Schuster Paperbacks, 1988. Later printing. Trade paperback. xii, [2], 1064,[8] pages. Wraps. Illustrations. Notes. Major works cited in Notes. Index. Covers creased. Inscribed by the author on the title page. Inscription reads: For Steve, With best wishes, Taylor Branch Dec. 6, 2016. Taylor Branch (born January 14, 1947) is an American author and historian who wrote a Pulitzer Prize winning trilogy chronicling the life of Martin Luther King Jr. and much of the history of the American civil rights movement. The final volume of the 2,912-page trilogy, collectively called America in the King Years, was released in January 2006, and an abridgment, The King Years: Historic Moments in the Civil Rights Movement, was published in 2013. Branch served as an assistant editor at The Washington Monthly from 1970 to 1973; he was Washington editor of Harper's from 1973 to 1976; and he was Washington columnist for Esquire Magazine from 1976 to 1977. He also has written for a variety of other publications, including The New York Times Magazine, and The New Republic. In 1972, Branch worked for the campaign of Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern. Branch shared an apartment with Bill Clinton, and the two developed a friendship. He also worked with Hillary Rodham, later Clinton's wife. Branch's book on Bill Clinton, The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History With The President, was written from tape-recorded interviews and conversations, most of which occurred in the White House during Clinton's two terms in office and which were not disclosed publicly until 2009. In 2015, he received the BIO Award from Biographers International Organization. In volume one of his America in the King Years, Pulitzer Prize winner Taylor Branch gives a masterly account of the American civil rights movement. Hailed as the most masterful story ever told of the American civil rights movement, Parting the Waters is destined to endure for generations. Moving from the fiery political baptism of Martin Luther King, Jr., to the corridors of Camelot where the Kennedy brothers weighed demands for justice against the deceptions of J. Edgar Hoover, here is a vivid tapestry of America, torn and finally transformed by a revolutionary struggle unequaled since the Civil War. Taylor Branch provides an unsurpassed portrait of King's rise to greatness and illuminates the stunning courage and private conflict, the deals, maneuvers, betrayals, and rivalries that determined history behind closed doors, at boycotts and sit-ins, on bloody freedom rides, and through siege and murder. Epic in scope and impact, Branch's chronicle definitively captures one of the nation's most crucial passages. Derived from a Kirkus review: An affecting, wide-ranging evocation of a turbulent decade when the civil-rights movement launched its fiercely determined, largely nonviolent battle for America's social conscience and soul. Branch provides introductory perspectives on the Deep South's black churches—where the cause of desegregation was nurtured to the accompaniment of animating anthems, prayers, and sermons. In this first volume of a multi-part work, he focuses on the period that began with Martin Luther King's 1954 arrival as pastor of Montgomery's upscale Dexter Avenue Baptist Church and ended with the 1963 assassination of JFK. In what he styles a narrative biographical history, the author recalls the economic boycotts, demonstrations, jailings, financial woes, judicial decisions, political maneuverings, internal dissensions, and reactions that marked the early stages of blacks' first organized efforts to achieve equal rights in the face of entrenched racism. Cutting back and forth between the distinctly different worlds of black and white leaders, Branch provides warts-and-all portraits of those who played key roles in the long-running drama. King claims the heart of this account. But the author also profiles Ralph Abernathy, Harry Belafonte, J. Edgar Hoover, JFK and his brother Robert, Stanley Levinson, John Lewis, Robert Moses, George Wallace, and a host of others. Covered as well are other participants—including the estimable Septima Clark, who once reminded Andrew Young that it might be wise to share the lot of the hungry volunteers he recruited and bused about for confrontations with recalcitrant municipal authorities. Nor does Branch shrink from harsh judgments. At the close, for instance, he reports without disputing King's belief that Kennedy's death was a blessing for the civil-rights campaign, which might otherwise have stalled. A vivid, panoramic text that documents the roots of an epic, many-splendored cause. Condition: good.
Keywords: Martin Luther King, Ku Klux Klan, African-Americans, Afro-Americans, Civil Rights, Racism, Discrimination, FBI, Segregation, Vernon Johns, Montgomery Bus Boycott, Freedom Rides, Birmingham Jail, March on Washington
ISBN: 9780671687427
[Book #47104]
Price: $125.00