The King Years

The King Years
Author: Taylor Branch
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 4
Release: 2013-01-08
Genre: History
ISBN: 1451662475

The essential moments of the Civil Rights Movement are set in historical context by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the magisterial America in the King Years trilogy—Parting the Waters; Pillar of Fire; and At Canaan’s Edge. Taylor Branch, author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning America in the King Years trilogy, presents selections from his monumental work that recount the essential moments of the Civil Rights Movement. A masterpiece of storytelling on race and democracy, violence and nonviolence, The King Years delivers riveting tales of everyday heroes whose stories inspire us still. Here is the full sweep of an era that transformed America and continues to offer crucial lessons for today’s world. This vital primer amply fulfills Branch’s dedication: “For students of freedom and teachers of history.”

At Canaan's Edge

At Canaan's Edge
Author: Taylor Branch
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 1915
Release: 2007-04-04
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1416558713

At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68 is the final volume in Taylor Branch's magnificent history of America in the years of the Civil Rights Movement and Vietnam War, recognized universally as the definitive account and ultimate recognition of Martin Luther King's heroic place in the nation's history. The final volume of Taylor Branch's monumental, much honored, and definitive history of the Civil Rights Movement (America in the King Years), At Canaan's Edge 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 traces a seminal era in our defining national story, freedom. The narrative 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, Meredith's murder, 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.

Pillar of Fire

Pillar of Fire
Author: Taylor Branch
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 868
Release: 2007-04-16
Genre: History
ISBN: 1416558705

From Pulitzer Prize-winning author Taylor Branch, the second part of his epic trilogy on Martin Luther King, Jr. and the American Civil Rights Movement. In the second volume of his three-part history, a monumental trilogy that began with Parting the Waters, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, 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.

Death of a King

Death of a King
Author: Tavis Smiley
Publisher: Little, Brown
Total Pages: 200
Release: 2014-09-09
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0316332755

A revealing and dramatic chronicle of the twelve months leading up to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination. Martin Luther King, Jr. died in one of the most shocking assassinations the world has known, but little is remembered about the life he led in his final year. New York Times bestselling author and award-winning broadcaster Tavis Smiley recounts the final 365 days of King's life, revealing the minister's trials and tribulations -- denunciations by the press, rejection from the president, dismissal by the country's black middle class and militants, assaults on his character, ideology, and political tactics, to name a few -- all of which he had to rise above in order to lead and address the racism, poverty, and militarism that threatened to destroy our democracy. Smiley's Death of a King paints a portrait of a leader and visionary in a narrative different from all that have come before. Here is an exceptional glimpse into King's life -- one that adds both nuance and gravitas to his legacy as an American hero.

The Clinton Tapes

The Clinton Tapes
Author: Taylor Branch
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 730
Release: 2009-09-29
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1416543333

Former President Bill Clinton speaks intimately over seven years to his long-time friend, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, about what it's like to be president. Providing illuminating commentaries on major issues, these conversations depict Clinton as a principled man with a restless intellect. b&w photographs.

Parting the Waters

Parting the Waters
Author: Taylor Branch
Publisher:
Total Pages: 1064
Release: 1988
Genre: African Americans
ISBN: 9780333497005

This book chronicles the Civil Rights struggle, from the twilight of the Eisenhower years through King's fiery political baptism, the ascension of John F.Kennedy and ultimately the dawning of the New South.

Bearing the Cross

Bearing the Cross
Author: David J. Garrow
Publisher: Open Road Media
Total Pages: 599
Release: 2015-02-17
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 150401152X

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize: The definitive biography of Martin Luther King Jr. In this monumental account of the life of Martin Luther King Jr., professor and historian David Garrow traces King’s evolution from young pastor who spearheaded the 1955–56 bus boycott of Montgomery, Alabama, to inspirational leader of America’s civil rights movement. Based on extensive research and more than seven hundred interviews, with subjects including Andrew Young, Jesse Jackson, and Coretta Scott King, Garrow paints a multidimensional portrait of a charismatic figure driven by his strong moral obligation to lead—and of the toll this calling took on his life. Bearing the Cross provides a penetrating account of King’s spiritual development and his crucial role at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, whose protest campaigns in Birmingham and Selma, Alabama, led to enactment of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965. This comprehensive yet intimate study reveals the deep sense of mission King felt to serve as an unrelenting crusader against prejudice, inequality, and violence, and his willingness to sacrifice his own life on behalf of his beliefs. Written more than twenty-five years ago, Bearing the Cross remains an unparalleled examination of the life of Martin Luther King Jr. and the legacy of the civil rights movement.

The Phantom

The Phantom
Author: Lee Falk
Publisher: Hermes Press
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2012-05-14
Genre: Comics & Graphic Novels
ISBN: 1613450095

The mid-1960s comic book adventures of The Phantom return in full, glorious color! Hermes Press is collecting, all 73 issues of The Phantom comic books which ran from 1962-1977, and this volume features the King years. This volume picks up with The Phantom #18, the first King issue, and features all The Phantom stories from issues #18-#28 and also features all of the Phantom back-up stories from Mandrake the Magician. The King years features cover and interior art by Bill Lignante. The King comic book version of the grand-daddy of costumed heroes, the Ghost Who Walks, is available again, digitally remastered to look better than the original books. Don’t miss it!

The Seminarian

The Seminarian
Author: Patrick Parr
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Total Pages: 218
Release: 2018-04-01
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0915864223

2018 and 2019 Washington State Book Award Finalist (Biography/Memoir) • Excerpted in The Atlantic and Politico • TIME Magazine – One of 6 Books to Read in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s Death Martin Luther King Jr. was a cautious nineteen-year-old rookie preacher when he left Atlanta, Georgia, to attend divinity school up north. At Crozer Theological Seminary, King, or "ML" back then, immediately found himself surrounded by a white staff and white professors. Even his dorm room had once been used by wounded Confederate soldiers during the Civil War. In addition, his fellow seminarians were almost all older; some were soldiers who had fought in World War II, others pacifists who had chosen jail instead of enlisting. ML was facing challenges he'd barely dreamed of. A prankster and a late-night, chain-smoking pool player, ML soon fell in love with a white woman, all the while adjusting to life in an integrated student body and facing discrimination from locals in the surrounding town of Chester, Pennsylvania. In class, ML performed well, though he demonstrated a habit of plagiarizing that continued throughout his academic career. But he was helped by friendships with fellow seminarians and the mentorship of the Reverend J. Pius Barbour. In his three years at Crozer between 1948 and 1951, King delivered dozens of sermons around the Philadelphia area, had a gun pointed at him (twice), played on the basketball team, and eventually became student body president. These experiences shaped him into a man ready to take on even greater challenges. Based on dozens of revealing interviews with the men and women who knew him then,The Seminarian is the first definitive, full-length account of King's years as a divinity student at Crozer Theological Seminary. Long passed over by biographers and historians, this period in King's life is vital to understanding the historical figure he soon became.

Why We Can't Wait

Why We Can't Wait
Author: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Publisher: Beacon Press
Total Pages: 120
Release: 2011-01-11
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0807001139

Dr. King’s best-selling account of the civil rights movement in Birmingham during the spring and summer of 1963 On April 16, 1963, as the violent events of the Birmingham campaign unfolded in the city’s streets, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., composed a letter from his prison cell in response to local religious leaders’ criticism of the campaign. The resulting piece of extraordinary protest writing, “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” was widely circulated and published in numerous periodicals. After the conclusion of the campaign and the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963, King further developed the ideas introduced in the letter in Why We Can’t Wait, which tells the story of African American activism in the spring and summer of 1963. During this time, Birmingham, Alabama, was perhaps the most racially segregated city in the United States, but the campaign launched by King, Fred Shuttlesworth, and others demonstrated to the world the power of nonviolent direct action. Often applauded as King’s most incisive and eloquent book, Why We Can’t Wait recounts the Birmingham campaign in vivid detail, while underscoring why 1963 was such a crucial year for the civil rights movement. Disappointed by the slow pace of school desegregation and civil rights legislation, King observed that by 1963—during which the country celebrated the one-hundredth anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation—Asia and Africa were “moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence but we still creep at a horse-and-buggy pace.” King examines the history of the civil rights struggle, noting tasks that future generations must accomplish to bring about full equality, and asserts that African Americans have already waited over three centuries for civil rights and that it is time to be proactive: “For years now, I have heard the word ‘Wait!’ It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This ‘Wait’ has almost always meant ‘Never.’ We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that ‘justice too long delayed is justice denied.’”