Description

At Canaans Edge America in the King Years 196568 is the final volume in Taylor Branchs magnificent history of America in the years of the Civil Rights Movement and Vietnam War recognized universally as the definitive account and ultimate recognition of Martin Luther Kings heroic place in the nations history

The final volume of Taylor Branchs monumental much honored and definitive history of the Civil Rights Movement America in the King Years At Canaans Edge covers the final years of Kings struggle to hold his nonviolent movement together in the face of factionalism within the Movement hostility and harassment of the Johnson Administration the country torn apart by Vietnam and his own attempt and failure to take the Freedom Movement north

At Canaans Edge traces a seminal era in our defining national story freedom The narrative resumes in Selma crucible of the voting rights struggle for black people across the South The time is early 1965 when the modern Civil Rights Movement enters its second decade since the Supreme Courts Brown decision declared segregation by race a violation of the Constitution

From Selma Kings nonviolent Movement is under threat from competing forces inside and outside Branch chronicles the dramatic voting rights drives in Mississippi and Alabama Merediths murder the challenge to King from the Johnson Administration and the FBI and other enemies When King tries to bring his Movement north to Chicago he falters Finally we reach Memphis the garbage strike Kings assassination

Branchs magnificent trilogy makes clear why the Civil Rights Movement and indeed Kings leadership are among the nations enduring achievements