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Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63 (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "Under such conditions, and with the U.S. Congress threatening a new Fifteenth Amendment to establish the right of Negroes to vote and govern, most whites..." (more)
Key Phrases: monitor guns, white negotiators, nonviolence workshops, New York, President Kennedy, White House (more...)

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At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68 by Taylor Branch
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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

An award-winning biography of Martin Luther King Jr., a history of the civil rights movement, and a portrait of an era, Taylor Branch's Parting the Waters begins slowly but soon catches the listener in a tumult of unforgettable events. Branch's thorough research has been synthesized into an impressive account of the violence, courage, and confusion at the beginning of the civil rights movement, building to a powerful conclusion with a blow-by-blow retelling of the events in Birmingham, Alabama. Ably narrated by Joe Morton and C.C.H. Pounder, the audio abridgment is occasionally choppy, but well-done considering the print edition runs about 900 pages. The broad cast of characters includes Baptist preachers and student movement leaders as well as President John F. Kennedy and his cabinet. If you are daunted by the sheer mass of the print edition of Parting the Waters, this abridged production is for you. However don't be surprised if you find yourself wanting more and digging into the print version after all or perhaps the audio version of Pillar of Fire, Taylor's second book in his projected three-part series. (Running time: 6 Hours; 4 cassettes) --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Pacifist theologian Reinhold Niebuhr influenced Martin Luther King Jr. more deeply than did Gandhi, according to Branch, whose 880-page chronicle shows the civil rights leader taking Billy Graham's evangelist crusades as his model for organizing mass meetings to attack segregation. Epic in scope, often startling in its judgments and revelations, this gripping narrative mingles biography and history as it moves from the founding in 1867 of the First Baptist Church in Alabama, where King's movement took hold, to John Kennedy's assassination. Branch, journalist and coauthor of Second Wind , provides disturbing glimpses of John Kennedy wavering over integration while manipulating King, and of Robert Kennedy, who authorized FBI wiretaps on King's home and offices. Ralph Abernathy, Bayard Rustin and other leaders are also here, though King holds center-stage for most of the narrative. This stirring, vivid tapestry is the first volume in Branch's America in the King Years. First serial to Washington Post Magazine; BOMC segmented main selection.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

Hardcover
Publisher: Peter Smith Pub Inc (June 30, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0844672955
ISBN-13: 978-0844672953
Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 2.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (40 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #223,704 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Surprise Me!

Inside This Book (learn more)
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First Sentence:
Under such conditions, and with the U.S. Congress threatening a new Fifteenth Amendment to establish the right of Negroes to vote and govern, most whites were of no mind to dispute the Negro right to religion. Read the first page

Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
monitor guns, white negotiators, nonviolence workshops, freedom riders, new civil rights bill, police notes, blue bomb, registration workers, racial demonstrations, registration classes, white waiting room, perjury indictment, trial sermon, civil rights office, registration project, bail fund, biracial committee

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New York, President Kennedy, White House, Robert Kennedy, Burke Marshall, Daddy King, Wyatt Walker, United States, Martin Luther King, Bull Connor, Roy Wilkins, Stanley Levison, Reverend King, First Baptist, Bayard Rustin, Supreme Court, Clarence Jones, Ole Miss, John Lewis, Vernon Johns, New Orleans, Kennedy Administration, Chief Pritchett, Senator Kennedy, Ella Baker

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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Surprise Me!

Citations (learn more)

This book cites 96 books:

Playa Giron: Bay of Pigs : Washington's First Military Defeat in the Americas by Fidel Castro on 4 pages
March on Washington: August 28, 1963 by Thomas Gentile on page 876, Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
Stride Toward Freedom by Martin Luther King on page 227, page 363, and Back Matter
Martin Luther King, Jr. (Picture Life Series) by Young on page 23, page 28, and Back Matter
God's Gold by John T. Flynn in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)

See all 96 books this book cites

Books on Related Topics (learn more)

Pillar of Fire by Taylor Branch

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The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. by Martin Luther King Jr.

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Eyes on the Prize by Juan Williams

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Walking with the Wind by John Lewis

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What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

	84% buy the item featured on this page: Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63 4.8 out of 5 stars (40) $28.40
	6% buy Pillar of Fire : America in the King Years 1963-65 4.3 out of 5 stars (33) $6.80
	5% buy The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History with the President 3.9 out of 5 stars (12) $20.06
	4% buy At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68 4.7 out of 5 stars (32) $13.60

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Customer Reviews

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40 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Essential Part of Any Library, March 29, 2000

By	Mark Wylie (Spokane, WA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Parting the Waters : America in the King Years 1954-63 (Paperback)

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.

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20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Authentic & Comprehensive History of Civil Rights Movement, December 12, 2000

By	Barron Laycock "Labradorman" (Temple, New Hampshire United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Parting the Waters : America in the King Years 1954-63 (Paperback)

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!

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20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Comprehensive and moving, June 30, 2000

By	"bubelah" (Bruxelles Belgium) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Parting the Waters : America in the King Years 1954-63 (Paperback)

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!

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars MUCH USEFUL INFORMATION BUT A DISGRACE
I know what I have to say will be contentious. First let me say this book is beautifully written and contains a great deal of useful information. Read more

Published 19 hours ago by Jack Cade

3.0 out of 5 stars Parting the waters
This book was so hard to get through. If you are looking for history about King and 1954-1963, this is the book for you. Read more

Published 19 days ago by K. Cunningham

5.0 out of 5 stars The best book I've ever read.
What more can I say? It's big and intimidating, and most people don't seem to get through it on the first go-round. Read more

Published 7 months ago by Matt Skuegler

5.0 out of 5 stars Undiscovered Country
This book is even better than the glowing reviews suggested. It's simply a masterpiece of intelligent writing. Read more

Published 16 months ago by Calochortus

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazingly Woven Detail
As you begin to read chapter one, this book will become a page-turner. The amazingly woven detail gives life to this story of over fifty years ago. Read more

Published 19 months ago by Kansas

5.0 out of 5 stars Indispensable
The best single book on the civil rights movement I have ever read. Parting the Waters is partly a wonderful, complicated biography of Martin Luther King, Jr. Read more

Published on August 1, 2007 by Winston Smith

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent and Informative
I am about halfway through this book. Even though I have not finished yet I feel compelled to comment on it. Read more

Published on May 10, 2007 by Taiwan Rogers

5.0 out of 5 stars Moving storytelling
By most accounts, Branch's three volume history of the Civil Rights Movement is the authoritative account of Dr. King's life. Read more

Published on March 18, 2007 by Kristen Wicklund

5.0 out of 5 stars The origins of a revolution
This is the first of a trilogy of books on the civil rights struggle in the USA as centered around the Reverend Martin Luther King Junior. Read more

Published on August 26, 2006 by Newton Ooi

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great one, very very good.
This more than fills in some blanks. Number one book on civil rights, more than a must read.

Published on July 27, 2006 by Danny J. Wilson

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