num_pages: 1064
description: In Parting the Waters , the first volume of his essential America in the King Years series, Pulitzer Prize winner Taylor Branch gives a “compelling…masterfully told” ( The Wall Street Journal ) account of Martin Luther King’s early years and rise to greatness.Hailed as the most masterful story ever told of the American Civil Rights Movement, Parting the Waters is destined to endure for generations.Moving from the fiery political baptism of Martin Luther King, Jr., to the corridors of Camelot where the Kennedy brothers weighed demands for justice against the deceptions of J. Edgar Hoover, here is a vivid tapestry of America, torn and finally transformed by a revolutionary struggle unequaled since the Civil War.Taylor Branch provides an unsurpassed portrait of King's rise to greatness and illuminates the stunning courage and private conflict, the deals, maneuvers, betrayals, and rivalries that determined history behind closed doors, at boycotts and sit-ins, on bloody freedom rides, and through siege and murder.Epic in scope and impact, Branch's chronicle definitively captures one of the nation's most crucial passages.
language: English
title: Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63
titlecomplete: Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63
characters: Martin Luther King Jr.
genres: Historical, American, History, Biography, African American, American History, Social Justice, Race, Politics, Nonfiction
ratings_count: 9589
series: America in the King Years
awards: awardedAt: 599644800000
name: Pulitzer Prize
category: History, awardedAt: 599644800000
name: Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, awardedAt: 599644800000
name: Ambassador Book Award
category: Biography, awardedAt: 599644800000
name: Los Angeles Times Book Prize
category: Current Interest, awardedAt: 568022400000
name: National Book Critics Circle Award
category: General Nonfiction, awardedAt: 599644800000
name: Frederic G. Melcher Book Award, awardedAt: 599644800000
name: National Book Award Finalist
category: Nonfiction
publisher: Simon & Schuster