A review by marystevens
Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years 1963-65 by Taylor Branch

5.0

The second in Taylor Branch's authoritative trilogy America In The King Years has a broader scope than Parting The Waters because so much happened in the country from the time of LBJ's swearing in on Air Force One to the passing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. We learn about the deceit which led to the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and thus to the Vietnam War, the charismatic but troubled Malcolm X and his assassination ordered by the corrupt and immoral Elijah Mohammed, LBJ's masterful shepherding of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act through Congress, SNCC and the brutal murders of Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney during Mississippi Freedom Summer, the railroading of the the heroic Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party at the 1964 Democratic Convention, all this and more Martin Luther King was involved in but we haven't even focused on him yet.
Despite being wiretapped and vilified by the aging and vindictive J. Edgar Hoover, these three years show MLK triumphant. Following an exhausting schedule (he was hospitalized more than once) Martin deftly handles difficulties in organizing and ultimate success in St. Augustine, Florida, whirlwind fund raising, sermons and speeches all across the country and in Europe, where he has an audience with the Pope (despite Hoover's best efforts), organizing for the 3 Marches from Selma to Montgomery (including Bloody Sunday) and a second trip to Norway to collect the Nobel Peace Prize.
Branch describes the difficulties and successes of organizing and we meet some the unsung heroes: Bob Moses, Rep. John Lewis, Vernon Dahmer, Fannie Lou Hamer but the real heroes of the civil rights movement are the ministers and black students who went into the little towns in the south and the farmers, mechanics and teachers who responded to them, suffered and sometimes died in the great struggle for equality. A struggle we are still engaged in today, 50 years later.