Pillar of Fire This is the second of three books by Taylor Branch that tells the story of US history through the biography of Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement at large. Covering the years 1963-65, and published 12 years or so later, Taylor Branch spends the first quarter of this history doing two things. One, Branch has to go back and recast 1963 in a few ways. For one, we need to remember about the complicated and uncomfortable relationship between King and […]

This is the first of three biographical/historical volume about Martin Luther King Jr and the Civil Rights Movement in general from the historian Taylor Branch. Some context for the books. This first volume came out in 1990, and was partially being written at the time when Reagan enshrined the federal holiday for King. And thus began the era of white conservatives scolding Black people about King’s legacy, that they completely fabricate in their heads. Reagan of course spent a lot of his time as governor […]