Pillar of Fire

America in the King Years 1963-65

By: Taylor Branch

Narrated by: Janina Edwards, Prentice Onayemi

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.

The Details behind the Story

Make it come alive. Sometimes you feel like you are in the room listening to the dialog. The narration is excellent. Their voices are both calming and conveying information in a way that is easy to accept . I find the switching of narrator's each chapter is a great technique.

Excellent Treatment of Movement's Middle Years

This second in Branch's series of biographies/histories of the Civil Rights movement, building to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is perhaps a bit less engaging then his first (Parting the Waters). In part, it is because the first six chapters or so of this work run over the same ground (even using some of the same language) as the end of the earlier work, albeit slightly enriched by a discussion of northern and urban Civil Rights struggles, with special focus on Elijah Mohammed and Malcolm X. Branch has no special love for either of these men, with more venom (understandably) reserved for Mohammed. Though sometimes sympathetically, Malcolm is presented as a figure who is often unfocused and perhaps undecided in his approach, especially after his open break with Mohammed. He largely presents Malcolm's legend, as presented in his posthumous autobiography, as having larger impact than he had in his lifetime. Branch also continues the fractious story of the mainline movement, its conflicts between elements (SNCC, SCLC) and individual leaders over policy and personality moving from the late Kennedy to early Johnson administration. King and other leaders' marital infidelities and other short comings are discussed in terms of the Hoover FBI's efforts to exploit them and discredit them (ultimately unsuccessful). Branch's extensive study of tapes and documents from major figures, including wire tap reports give us a close view of a movement under pressure and scrutiny. Despite a few minor issues, I look forward to hearing volume 3, when even the limited consensus within the movement begins to break down after the victories of 1964 and 1965 in relation to Vietnam and the continued problems of race in America.