Parting the Waters Audiobook By Taylor Branch cover art

Parting the Waters

America in the King Years 1954-63

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Parting the Waters

By: Taylor Branch
Narrated by: Prentice Onayemi, Janina Edwards
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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.

Accolades & Awards

Pulitzer Prize
1989
National Book Critics Circle Award
1988
Los Angeles Times Book Prize
1989
Civil Rights & Liberties Los Angeles Times Book Prize National Book Critics Circle Award Pulitzer Prize Black & African American Martin Luther King Social movement United States Politics & Government Biographies & Memoirs African American Studies Civil rights Politics & Activism Social justice Freedom & Security Americas Politicians Social Sciences Equality Specific Demographics War Socialism
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Comprehensive History • Detailed Analysis • Phenomenal Narration • Nuanced Perspective • Insightful Background

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I’m so grateful to the author for producing this work. I learned soooo much! Took me to the past in a way I had not anricipated!

Amazing

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This is the exact history and in-depth storytelling that is needed in today's time.

Unknown truths

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Discovered an American history that I had only scratched the surface of previously. Thanks Taylor Branch!

Incredible Read!

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This book is a robust, scholarly novel like book on the Civil Rights movement. It was such a delight to read. It added richer layers to figures within the civil rights movement that I have been learning about. Buy, and read or listen to, this book, you will be glad that you did.

Wow!

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Really wonderful book. Thoughtful, deeply researched. I loved it. Prentice Onayemi is a fabulous reader. I like Janina Edwards but found alternating readers by chapter distracting. I would have preferred just Onayemi as a reader but that is just my personal preference. The book should be read by every American.

Excellent

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