Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-1963
Parting the Waters is the opening volume of Taylor Branch's three part history of the civil rights movement, known as the America in the King Years trilogy. It covers the years from 1954 to 1963, tracing Martin Luther King Jr.'s rise from a young pastor through the Montgomery bus boycott, the founding of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the sit ins and Freedom Rides, the campaign in Birmingham, and the March on Washington. Branch grounds the story in deep research, drawing on FBI files, interviews, and church records, and he places King within a wide cast of organizers, clergy, students, and officials. The book treats the movement as both a moral struggle and a political one. It won the Pulitzer Prize for History and is regarded as a defining account of the period.
What you might want to know about Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-1963
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
The first volume of Taylor Branch's history of the American civil rights movement, centered on Martin Luther King Jr. from 1954 to 1963.
Yes. It is the first of three volumes in Branch's America in the King Years trilogy, followed by Pillar of Fire and At Canaan's Edge.
Yes. It won the Pulitzer Prize for History and the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-1963 was written by Taylor Branch, published in 1988 by Simon & Schuster.
Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-1963 is 1088 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-1963 takes most readers 16 to 24 hours to finish.
Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-1963 is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
