Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(37)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a book that truly merits the label "must reading." It played a role in changing my own thinking on politics and history when I first read it in the early 1990's. During my "College Republican" days, my view of Martin Luther King, Jr. was not especially favorable, and I was almost totally ignorant of the history and background of the civil rights movement. But after reading Taylor Branch's book, I could no longer shut my eyes to the hard truths to which he bears brilliant witness.

Martin Luther King is the central figure in Branch's narrative, but the book is much more than a biography, as befits its subtitle, "America in the King Years, 1954-63." For example, Branch begins his account with the stormy tenure of Vernon Johns as minister at Montgomery, AL's Dexter Avenue Baptist Church--at which church Johns was replaced by a young man still often known as "Mike" King. By broadening his account beyond King's own experiences, Branch accurately conveys how the civil rights movement was far more than just the activities of a few well-known leaders.

Branch's research would do credit to any professional historian. He conducted hundreds of interviews and worked with a vast amount of primary source material. His writing is compelling, repeatedly capturing the intensity of both public and private events. Even though the hardcover edition is over 900 pages, when I first read it I found it incredibly hard to put aside.

I was bored by historical books. That was until I opened the first page of Taylor Branch's book. His ability to mix history, narrative and personal descriptions of the people involded in the civil rights movement made my reading extremely enjoyable, informative and captivating. At times I wad moved to tears and almost no book has had that effect on me so far. The book does not only focus on M.L. King himself and all the other characters involved made me feel part of a broader struggle for more humanity. It has been months since I read the book and my first impressions have remained as strong, I would advice it to anyone who wants to have fun, to be moved and learn at the same time. The civil rights movement is an essential part of history, you should read the book for your personal development, that is, development of your mind and of your heart. Just wonderful!

Presenting an authentic and comprehensive picture of the mammoth civil rights movement in the United States in the post WWII era is a daunting task, yet noted author and journalist Taylor Branch has succeeded masterfully with this, the first of a two-volume history of the struggle of blacks in America to find justice, equality and parity with the mainstream white society. Tracing the rise of the singular leader personified in the young Rev. Martin Luther King, Branch sets the stage for a wide range of events, personalities, and public issues. This is truly a wonderful read, fascinating, entertaining, and endlessly detailed in its description of people and events, and quite insightful in its chronicling of the fortune of those social forces that created, sustained, and accomplished the single most momentous feat of meaningful social action in our nation's contemporary history.

His range of subjects is necessarily wide and deep, and we find coverage of every aspect of the tumultuous struggle beginning in the deep South, and gradually working its way north and west until most of the urban northeast also surrendered to the battle cry for civil rights and justice under the law. In many respects this borders on being a biography of Martin Luther King and his times, yet Branch so extends his coverage of the eddies and currents of the movement itself that it appears to be by far the most comprehensive and fair-minded treatment of the civil rights movement published to date. Whether covering the issue of Martin Luther King's own personal life, his internal philosophical concerns, or his appetite for young white women, the reader is engaged with every element of this and a thousand other personalities, issues, and events that carved out the history of our country for almost twenty years.

One finds a very detailed of the Kennedy involvement in the movement, first as a purely political ploy to help to win the black vote in the extremely tight race for the Presidency in 1960, and then as an administration struggling to do what was right in the face of enormous social, political, and even economic opposition. Here too we find an absorbing account of how the FBI attempted to infiltrate and influence the movement, with J. Edgar Hoover's adroit political savvy and deep-seated racism causing great difficulty and a number of tribulations for the civil rights cause. The names and places and events described here are legion, and one gets the sense that anyone who had a conscience was involved, and many of the names mentioned later went on to greater accomplishment and further noteworthy contribution in their public lives and careers.

This, then, is a stupendous first volume of a wonderful two-volume history of the civil rights movement in the United States, and covers the period from the late 1950s when the first rumblings of the movement were sounded until just after the assassination of John F. Kennedy in Dallas in November of 1963. The second volume picks up the thread thereafter, extending out through the Johnson years and including aspects of the coalescence of the movement with the Vietnam anti-war protest. This is a wonderful book, and one I would consider essential reading for anyone with an interest in American history in the 20th century. I highly recommend both books, and I hope you appreciate reading them as much as I did. Enjoy!

Branch's efforts to convey the efforts of the Civil Rights Movement under Martin Luther King, Jr., covering the watershed years is highly admirable, comprehensive and engaging. To read of this era (i.e., a movement defining an era) is to fully appreciate so many of the individual trials which culminated in some of the better aspects associated with self-empowerment, responsibility and the ultimate enrichment of those who, assuming risks against tremendous odds, lived to see some of the gratest triumphs in the history of our society.Well worth the Pulitzer, this book readily belongs alongside so many of the historic giants of American chronology. Strongly recommend

In his epic account of America during the Civil Rights Era, Taylor Branch provides a compelling portrait of the rise to prominence of Martin Luther King, Jr. This Pulitzer Prize winning book is historical narrative at its finest. Branch focuses on the life of King, the African American politics of the era, as well as the local, state, and national politics affecting the civil rights movement.

Michael Luther King, Jr., was born to an elite African-American family on January 15, 1929. At the age of five, his father would change his and his son's names to Martin Luther King, in honor of Martin Luther after the elder King traveled to Germany. The younger King was raised with the highest of expectations. Highly unusual in his time, the King family had the means, through their powerful position as a leading Atlanta black family and through the enterprising and industrious ways of MLK, Sr., to put MLK, Jr. through college up to the level of earning a P.H.D. from Boston University. This education both shaped the younger King in the traditional ways of learning, as well as through the social contacts he gained, and through the experience of living in the relatively liberal north.

In 1954 at the age of 25, two weeks after the Warren Supreme Court handed down the landmark decision in Brown, et al., v. Board of Education of Topeka, King gave his first sermon as pastor-designate at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. In taking this job, King was defying his father who wanted his son to eventually take over at his own church, Atlanta's Ebenezer Baptist Church. Moving into the deep south, and away from the elite black community of Atlanta, King was in for a rude awakening as he was exposed to the depths and strengths of entrenched racism.

King soon rose to national prominence as the leader of the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA). With the arrest of Rosa Parks for refusing to give up her seat to a white man, the MIA mobilized the black community in Montgomery into what became the largest act of civil disobedience among blacks up to that time. Branch's account of the Montgomery bus boycott, like the entire book, is riveting. Through great bravery, hardship, and persecution, the blacks triumphed and the Montgomery buses were finally integrated. King was just one of many blacks who provided leadership and showed courage through this ordeal, but because of his skills as an orator and his position as the leader of the MIA, he found himself thrust into the national spotlight.

The book culminates with the march on Washington in 1963, and the assassination of President Kennedy that same year. Throughout, King is portrayed as a brilliant leader, a fiery orator, a man willing to go to jail for what he believes in, and a man who is successfully and brilliantly riding the tides and changing currents of his times. However, Branch does not portray King as a solo operator. The events of the Civil Rights Era, starting roughly with the Brown decision, and going through the assassination of King in 1968, are a series of events with multiple personalities and acts of bravery against institutionalized persecution and entrenched bigotry. The southern mayors, governors, police chiefs, policemen, firemen, and the angry white southern mobs are shown as the villains of a racist society. President Eisenhower and to a lesser degree President Kennedy were reluctant participants in the inflammatory racial politics of their time. Attorney General Robert Kennedy took a more active role in civil rights than any of his predecessors at the Department of Justice, but he too was hemmed in by the politics of his own party. Richard Nixon, Ike's vice president and the Republican candidate in 1960, was more in tune with the plight of blacks than Eisenhower was, but Branch portrays Nixon, along with the other leading politicians of both parties as always acting out of political calculation. The most sinister man on the national level was J. Edgar Hoover, the entrenched FBI chief who would stop at nothing in his sick plots of snooping into the private lives of anyone he deemed of interest. King ranked high on that list.

"Parting the Waters" is a long book, but it is an easy and quick read. Branch brilliantly gives the reader a taste of America during the years of 1954 to 1963 from the perspective of the civil rights issue. He also portrays Martin Luther King, Jr., now a national martyr and hero to blacks and whites alike, as an extraordinary human being who rose to the challenges of his times and helped lead all Americans closer to the promised land of equal opportunity.

In reading this book, you will believe in the power of prayer, bear witness to miracles, marvel at overlapping destinies, and give thanks for accidents of history. You also will be humbled and inspired by the spiritual life and public work of Dr. Martin Luther King.

Author Branch presents an enormous cast of characters and complicated interweaving storylines to tell the amazing story of the civil rights movement at a time when the country was struggling to integrate the moral momentum of WWII into a domestic reconciliation on race. By making King the main road through which all things pass, the huge story stays on track and remains a story of human, instead of political, dimensions.

King was a dreamer and a pragmatic strategist. But many of his most illuminating moments came from unexpected or desperate places such as his first movement speech in the early days of the Montgomery bus boycott or his "Letter From a Birmingham Jail." Branch shows how the movement drew more power from epiphanies and spontaneous acts than it did from planned insurrections. That passion of the human spirit to right the world, as exemplified by Dr. King, frames this story.

Even though we all know the history of the boycotts, the sit-ins, the marches, the voter registration drives, and the Freedom Rides, Branch writes so forcefully and knowledgeably about the people, that it comes alive all over again. The outcome seems uncertain despite us knowing the ending which is what makes the stories in this book living history.

As race has been a defining issue in American politics for the last two centuries, no understanding of our time can be complete without a thorough knowledge of the civil rights movement. This book, beautifully written and carefully researched, is the most comprehensive picture of the early part of the civil rights movement that I have seen. Engaging as a story, this book manages to capture the full flavor of that great tide that swept away the old 'Jim Crow' south.

Taylor presents it all: the protagonists, the movements and counter movements, the outrages that helped turn public opinion, the individual dramas that played out against the larger conflict. Never boring and never doctrinaire, this book builds chapter by chapter, a momentum just as the movement did, leading up to the triumphant March on Washington.

Though Martin Luther King, Jr. is central to the story, this is not a King bio, nor does it deny space and attention to those others, black and white, who played key roles during this time. This is simply a fascinating book on a very important subject. I suspect it will be read as the definitive view of this period for some time. It is hard to imagine it being topped.

This book - the first in a projected series of three volumes - begins a comprehensive history of the civil rights movement, focusing on the role played by Martin Luther King. It is not a biography of King per se but Taylor Branch has a lot to say about how King, through personal effort, became a great leader. King was, of course, a great orator, and Branch is pretty adept at analyzing his methods. But almost anyone who has heard King or read him knows that he was channeling something greater than himself.

What King wanted for himself was a life of scholarship. Yet, as Jesus said on the Mount of Olives, "not my will, but yours be done." In a brilliant anecdote, Branch relates how King was elected, almost accidentally, to head the Montgomery Bus Boycott. At a mass meeting that evening, King gave an inspired speech. At the end of the speech, the audience sat, stunned. People reached out to touch him as he left the building. "[King] would work on his timing, but his oratory had just made him forever a public person. . . . He was twenty-six, and had not quite twelve years and four months to live." The obstacles in Montgomery in 1955 were many, and only a few weeks passed before King sat in despair, his face buried in his hands. He prayed, saying "I've come to the point where I can't face it alone." As he spoke these words, he experienced a transcendent religious experience that gave him the strength to continue his struggle. No man is perfect, but King knew his duty, and did it.

Beyond its insights into King's character, this book offers readers a survey of our country at a critical juncture. When the civil rights movement began, the balance of interests in the United States had left the South in the grip of the great evil of segregation. King himself shifted the balance. At the same time, thousands of ordinary Americans, devoted to nonviolent struggle, suffered tremendous privation, loss of livelihood, beatings, and sometimes death, making it impossible for the federal government to ignore the plight of Southern blacks.

Finally, through Branch's history, we meet a large number of what could almost be called interesting minor figures except that they were not minor at all. One of these is Vernon Johns, a brilliant farmer-preacher who preached the social gospel. In a memorable scene, Johns is asked to address a group of white and black preachers who are meeting to discuss the role of the church during a time of racial tension. He says, "The thing that disappoints me about the Southern white church is that it spends all of its time dealing with Jesus after the cross, instead of dealing with Jesus before the cross. . . . If that were the heart of Christianity, all God had to do was drop him down on Friday, let them kill him, and then yank him up again on Easter Sunday. That's all you hear. You don't hear so much about his three years of teaching that man's religion is revealed in the love of his fellow man. He who says he loves God and hates his fellow man is a liar, and the truth is not in him. That is what offended the leaders of Jesus's own established religion as well as the colonial authorities from Rome. That's why they put him up there. . . . I want to deal with Jesus before the cross. I don't give a damn what happened to him after the cross." At this point, no one's too happy that they invited Johns to speak. Lest we think that Johns was just an eccentric, though, Branch also refers us to Johns' "Transfigured Moments," which can be found on the web and shows Johns to be a serious man of considerable understanding and imagination.

In addition to its merit as history, Parting the Waters is a great read, and deserves to be read slowly. If you can do this, the time you spend with this 900-plus-page book will be extremely rewarding.

This book provides incomparable insight into the bowels of the early civil rights movement. While most accounts are only superficial, focusinging only on the "significant" events, Branch takes his readers into the heart of the storm to show how intricate political pressures, ideologies, spiritual upliftings, violence, non-violence, press coverage, rivalaries, and extroardinary courage entangled to "lift a despised minority from oblivion."

Any less thorough of an account than Branch's would seem to distort the rich history. Do not be intimidated by the 1000 pages (only part of a 3 volume set). In fact, Branch's prose is so melifluous and the history is so engaging that you will regret that the book isn't twice as long.

I am envious of you, new readers, for I wish I could relive the incredible experience of reading this book for the first time. Be prepared to have your heart strings tugged, your passion inflamed, your mind stimulated, and your committment to justice solidified.

A compelling account of Americans struggling for the right to be Americans, and in the process ultimately defining what it means to BE American. Fighting against hulking Negro reluctance, bone chilling KKK terror, a hostile FBI, and an unsympthetic Federal Government the real life true grit story is at once great and humbling.