America in the King Years

I read the first volume of this trilogy after it came out in 1988 and bought subsequent volumes as they were published but left them unread on my shelves. Then came the early days of the pandemic, during which I was laid off, and I read all three volumes (including re-reading “Parting the Waters”) in one fell swoop. What a magnificent experience to read them consecutively. By the end, with King’s assassination, I was truly overwhelmed by the majesty and grandeur of the civil rights movement and by Taylor Branch’s tremendous gift to posterity in composing this trilogy. Until something better comes along (perhaps fueled by future releases of government files), this will stand as the definitive account of a glorious and deeply consequential chapter in American history. — Chris, June 9, 2026

• 1989 Pulitzer Prize for History
• 1988 National Book Critics Circle Award for General Nonfiction

Synopsis from online sources:

In “Parting the Waters,” the first volume of his essential America in the King Years series, Pulitzer Prize winner Taylor Branch gives a “compelling…masterfully told” (The Wall Street Journal) account of Martin Luther King’s early years and rise to greatness.

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.

In the second volume of his three-part history, Taylor Branch portrays the Civil Rights Movement at its zenith, recounting the climactic struggles as they commanded the national stage. Beginning with the Nation of Islam and conflict over racial separatism, “Pillar of Fire” takes the reader to Mississippi and Alabama: Birmingham, the murder of Medgar Evers, the “March on Washington,” the Civil Rights Act, and voter registration drives.

In 1964, King is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Branch’s magnificent trilogy makes clear why the Civil Rights Movement, and indeed King’s leadership, are among the nation’s enduring achievements. In bringing these decades alive, preserving the integrity of those who marched and died, Branch gives us a crucial part of our history and heritage.

“At Canaan’s Edge,” the final volume in Taylor Branch’s magnificent history of America in the years of the Civil Rights Movement and Vietnam War, covers the final years of King’s struggle to hold his non-violent movement together in the face of factionalism within the Movement, hostility and harassment of the Johnson Administration, the country torn apart by Vietnam, and his own attempt (and failure) to take the Freedom Movement north.

“At Canaan’s Edge” resumes in Selma, crucible of the voting rights struggle for black people across the South. The time is early 1965, when the modern Civil Rights Movement enters its second decade since the Supreme Court’s Brown decision declared segregation by race a violation of the Constitution. From Selma, King’s non-violent movement is under threat from competing forces inside and outside.

Branch chronicles the dramatic voting rights drives in Mississippi and Alabama, the challenge to King from the Johnson Administration and the FBI and other enemies. When King tries to bring his movement north (to Chicago), he falters. Finally we reach Memphis, the garbage strike, King’s assassination. Branch’s magnificent trilogy makes clear why the Civil Rights Movement, and indeed King’s leadership, are among the nation’s enduring achievements.