Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-63

Taylor Branch

Simon and Schuster, Apr 16, 2007 - Biography & Autobiography - 1088 pages

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.

What people are saying

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - michaelbartley - LibraryThing

a very detailed and insightful study of the civil rights movement from the bus bocott to the march on washington. shows america at its best, the men and women, that led the battle for rights and ...

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - dmarsh451 - LibraryThing

Did not dock a star for the 20 missing pages in the paperback edition I read. Accidents will happen. I enjoyed how smoothly this was written--the thing is huge, so it was a nice bonus while I propped ...

About the author

Taylor Branch is the bestselling author of Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63; Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963-65; At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-1968; and The Clinton Tapes. He has won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-63
• Author: Taylor Branch
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Simon and Schuster, 2007
• ISBN: 1416558683, 9781416558682
• Length: 1088 pages
• Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / Political; History / United States / 20th Century; Political Science / Civil Rights