A review by samantha_shain
Parting the Waters: Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement 1954-63 by Taylor Branch

5.0

It's difficult to write a review of a 925 opus (the first in a TRILOGY) that provides such a play-by-play account of the early phases of the Civil Rights Movement. After all, there are SO many episodes, so much detail, so many hallway conversations, tensions, compromises, contradictions, setbacks, miracles, etc. The book was not at all self-indulgent. The length was warranted (though I thought some of the early stuff about the legacy of the founding preachers of some churches was less interesting) and the book achieved the impossible of breadth and depth. I learned so much about behind-the-scenes figures as well as sequencing of events that have been left out of the "civil rights canon." I had no prior knowledge of the inner workings of the Kennedy administration or Hoover's FBI. My major critique of the book is that insignificant men are afforded more background characterization than incredibly significant women. This is a huge flaw and truly unacceptable. Anyone who reads this book should complement it with reading any of the stellar books available about women in the civil rights struggle like Ella Baker, Septima Clark, Diane Nash, and yes, even Rosa Parks.