America in the King Years

Taylor Branch

This sweeping narrative traces the rise of the modern civil rights movement from the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision through the turbulent years of the early 1960s. It follows the grassroots organizers, visionary leaders, ordinary citizens, and political figures who confronted segregation and reshaped the national debate over justice and equality. Alongside landmark protests and legal battles, the book explores the movement’s strategic tensions, moral convictions, and profound personal costs. Meticulously researched and vividly told, it offers a landmark account of the people and events that transformed American democracy.

Taylor Branch

The second volume of an acclaimed trilogy on the American Civil Rights Movement, this sweeping history follows the movement from 1963 through 1965, a period of extraordinary momentum, confrontation, and national transformation. It chronicles pivotal campaigns, landmark legislation, and the leaders and ordinary citizens whose courage brought racial justice to the center of American public life. At the same time, it examines the movement’s internal debates, the resistance it provoked, and the widening tensions that challenged its unity. Richly researched and vividly told, the book combines political history with a deeply human account of one of the defining struggles in modern America.

Taylor Branch

This sweeping historical account follows the civil rights movement from the pivotal Selma campaign through the upheavals that transformed American democracy in the late 1960s. It traces the movement’s expanding battles for voting rights, political power, and economic justice, as activists confront violent resistance, internal divisions, the rise of Black Power, and the intractable realities of racism beyond the South. The narrative also examines Martin Luther King Jr.’s opposition to the Vietnam War, his deepening commitment to confronting poverty, and the movement’s final campaigns in Memphis. Richly researched and vividly told, the book offers a profound portrait of courage, conflict, and the unfinished struggle for equality.