Part one of Taylor Branch's three-part magnum opus, Parting the Waters is a dramatic and in-depth retelling of the rise of Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement. Powerfully written, Branch's work brings the reader both to the front lines and into the back rooms of the years that would become the crucible of the American century. In Washington and globetrotting across the planet are Eisenhower, Robert and John Kennedy, J. Edgar Hoover and Richard Nixon. Yet government, Branch allows us to see, is so much more than elected officials. Here we can hear the story of John Doar, a white country lawyer from Wisconsin, and all that would bring him to Jackson, Mississippi to represent the Justice Department and quell an incipient riot following the assassination of Medgar Evers. Or, Sheriff Laurie Pritchett, who would try to forestall integration for years in Albany, Georgia.Across the picket lines we see the political baptism of not only the Fred Shuttleworths, Diane Nash Bevels and Ralph Abernathys, but also of hundreds of thousands of nameless black (and white) Americans who would walk, ride, march, sit-in and stand-up to demand equal rights and justice for all Americans, regardless of race. By taking a broad sweep, yet maintaining crucial details, Branch brings to life the struggle and strife, the joys and pains and sometimes the abject horrors of that were an everyday reality for men and women demanding their rights across the south.
And, of course, their is King. At its core the work examines the life and times and rise of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to the March on Washington and perhaps the most famous speech ever given by an American. When, as a reader, you reach that day in August 1963, one feels the tension within King and the movement. Because Branch has pulled no punches in his depiction of the strengths and weaknesses, both of the man and the Civil Rights Movement, it is hard to not get swept along with the passion and emotion as he calls out to the "snow-capped Rockies of Colorado" and down to the sweltering injustices of Mississippi. One cannot but feel the bottom fall out as a bullet takes Medgar Ever on the very night that President Kennedy would finally stand up for Civil Rights legislation. And you cannot but be overcome with awe, joy and wonder when Rev. Charles Billups calls out to Bull Connor, "Turn on your hoses. Turn loose your dogs. We will stand here 'til we die!"
Gripping, beautiful and inspiring, Branch's first part makes me all the more excited to continue the journey, even if we know that it will end most unceremoniously one April day in Memphis.
