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Reflections on Taylor Branch’s “America in the King Years”
Lessons-Learned in Hopes They Will Not Be Forgotten
Four years ago I learned that Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Taylor Branch had written a three-volume biography of Martin Luther King, Jr., America in the King Years. I promised myself I would read it — someday. Two years later was the middle of the pandemic, and a little voice told me that I probably wouldn’t get a better opportunity to start.
First, I looked up the three volumes and their lengths. I noted that each volume had substantial pages just for endnotes and references, so I counted just the pages of text to read for each of the three volumes:
Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954–63: 924 pages
Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years 1963–65: 616 pages
At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years, 1965–68: 776 pages
That’s 2316 pages of text, total. My rough guess was that it would take me two years to read them all.
In July, 2024, two years and seven days after I started reading the first volume in 2022, I finished the last volume. While certainly many days went by without me reading at all, this works out to an average of a little over three pages a day.
