Parting the Waters : America in the King Years 1954-63,   ISBN:B000WMJ610

Customer Rating: 

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. Having said that I find it in places poorly researched but mainly vexing. First Paul Robeson gets one mention; second Ben Davis is damned with "pity"--more importantly this book focuses on the elites and frankly as SNCC understood so well elites do not make the movement. Dr. King did not make the movement, the movement made Dr. King. I grant Branch's exploration of the conflicts in Dr. King's character are insightful--but his focus is distorted. Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer--if we are to talk about individuals--perhaps the greatest American who ever lived gets about three pages. You cannot IMAGINE how angry that makes me! The book is dedicated to a true hero Septima Clarke--but though she is mentiooned throughout she is not ever really explored--her story is not heard. Bob Moses comes off as some kind of mystic--that is just stupid. Mr. Moses was quiet and shunned publicity. Nowhere is there any real sense that Black People had been struggling mightily well before 1954. It would be too much to ask Branch to talk about Ned Cobb or Ralph Gray; they come well before the movement "officially" began. But Branch does not really understand the difference between a movement and a crusade. Crusades are charismatic and look to iconic leadership. Movements are democratic and look to ordinary people. I don't care about Brown V Board and I sure don't care what Kennedy or any of those Washington Pols did or did not do. Great history rescues the unknown people without whose dedication success is impossible. Branch does not get it. In " All God's Dangers" Ned Cobb one of the "unlettered"--a black communist sharecropper says "I tell the world: all I wants is protection. I ain't stepped back nary a foot since I joined that union and furthermore ...you better mind how you walk up on me today. I stand now where I stood then" Mrs. Hamer a devoutly religious woman put it another way "I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired". THESE are the voices great history should bring us, not the machinations of a sexually incontinent president. Hell, I'd be more interested in hearing the voices of the white strudents who viciously abused James Merideth--what were they like? J. Anthony Lukas (who praises Branch) made it a point to listen to those voices in Common Ground.
Branch calls his trilogy "The King years" They were not. I think Dr. King would agree. They were the years in which ordinary people long abused began as SNCC put it "to make the decisons that affected their own lives" That does not happen often and Branch for all his research nowhere, NOWHERE aknowledges that. In a way this kind of top down history yearns for another Dr. King (or I suspect an Obama) to rescue us Black and White. It don't work like that.

Customer Rating: 

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. It does open your eyes to the awful truths about race and how white society handled losing control. A lot of people today would like to forget that period in time. While this book was chock full of history it does not pace the events slow enough for the reader to absorb what they are reading. It seems like Mr. Branch was so occupied with getting the facts out that he leaves the reader overwhelmed. Still in all, I think its a book that everyone should read because learning history is not always pretty but it is necessary.

Customer Rating: 

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. It doesn't start you off with I Have a Dream, it starts you off with this nutty old preacher you've probably never heard of (Vernon Johns). My advice: stick with it. It might just change your life.

Customer Rating: 

This book is even better than the glowing reviews suggested. It's simply a masterpiece of intelligent writing. The author respects the reader's intelligence, and has an amazing ability to mix detail and the big picture. I love the way the author combines a highly readable style with both arresting action, minute detail, and yet keeps his balance. He is able to get you excited about the events in Albany, GA as though they are happening now, then backs off to show how the whole campaign kind of died. He has remarkable energy and writing talent, and a wonderful ability to shift gears, weave threads together.

Customer Rating: 

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. Author Taylor Branch documents how M. L. King, Jr. walked into the storm of what was to become the Civil Rights Movement, and was then sucked into its vortex. As a "boomer" I was alive during parts of this, growing up in the Midwest. I remember some headlines and TV scenes, but reading the minutiae of what was behind those headlines was like unto discovering a mother's diary. I thoroughly enjoyed it.