Taylor Branch speaks on Civil Rights movement

I heard Taylor Branch speak today at noon at the Woman’s National Democratic Club in Washington, D.C. Branch, of course, is the author of a three-volume history of the Civil Rights movement in America. He won a Pulitzer Prize for the first book in the series, Parting the Waters, America in the King Years 1954-63. The second book was Pillar of Fire, America in the King Years 1963-65. He concludes the trilogy with At Canaan’s Edge, America in the King Years 1965-68, released this month.

“All of us stand on the shoulders of the Civil Rights movement,” Branch said. Considering his venue, Branch focused his remarks on the debt that the movement for woman’s rights owes to the Civil Rights movement.

Branch spent 24 years on his sweeping chronicle of the King years. He told me that he does not yet know what his next project will be. Branch is a gracious man (a native of the South), who obligingly signed my books during a reception prior to his talk.