Thursday, April 04, 2019

PILLAR OF FIRE


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Pillar of Fire, America in the King Years, 1963-1965, Taylor Branch, Simon & Schuster, 1998, 613 pp
 
First of all a health update: I am much better! Almost back to normal in fact. Thanks for all the well wishes.
 
*****
I spent 11 weeks reading Taylor Branch's second volume of a biography centered on Martin Luther King, Jr. Checking back in my reading log, I was surprised that it has been about four years since I read Volume I, Parting the Waters. During those years I read the first three volumes of Robert Caro's biography of Lyndon B Johnson. These two biographical feats dovetail perfectly, especially in Pillar of Fire, because the two men became inextricably entwined in the history of mid-20th century America.

Though I can only read these tomes at a rate of 10 pages a day, so dense are they with persons and events, I am thrilled to be experiencing what I was hoping to find by taking history in college. Especially in what I consider very trying times these days, learning all this history about my country (and much of it was just as trying) gives me courage and hope in some ways while it also has me laughing helplessly at how absurd it all is.

Pillar of Fire focuses intently on the entire Civil Rights Movement during 1963-1965, so it about much more than MLK himself. The movement in those years had become fractured into numerous groups and organizations, much of the time unaligned and full of conflict. Taylor Branch follows all of this on an almost day by day basis. The continuous actions of non-violent protest in the South, the friction between King and Malcolm X, the entry of white college students and ministers from the North and West, and the riots in Northern Cities are all covered in great detail.

President John F Kennedy was assassinated before he could manage to get much done for racial equality. Lyndon B Johnson in his first years as President did get the Civil Rights Bill through Congress. However the KKK kept on bombing churches and killing Black people, getting away with it in the courts of the South. 

Thanks to J Edgar Hoover and his obsessions, LBJ could not find a way to provide Federal support for integration despite his new law. He also had the growing situation of Vietnam to deal with. That left King and all the other civil rights leaders to carry on basically without backup.

What struck me hardest as I read was how long and hard it can be to bring about social change, how tirelessly all those thousands of people kept at trying to make the law a reality and getting Blacks the right to vote.

Ten years after Rosa Park's refusal to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama bus, segregation was still the everyday practice in the South. Malcolm X was assassinated. By 1968 Martin Luther King would be too. Today, Black Americans are still at the mercy of brutality, poverty, and incarceration in what we are told is "our great nation." Over 150 year have passed since we freed our slaves, on paper.

So, next up for me is Robert Caro's The Passage of Power, the parallel story of LBJ's years 1958-1964. Another 605 pages. Then one more volume about MLK. Then, God willing, the final LBJ volume from Caro. I sure hope he is able to finish it.

12 comments:

  1. I really should read this. It was such an important and pivotal time in American history. These events had such a profound effect on so much. Martin Luther King and others are truly heros and America owes so much to them.

    Great review of this book.

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    1. Thank you, Brian. Another interesting thing I noticed: Taylor Branch would write about what the newspapers said about various events and I realized that what we get from the news is just a tiny bit of the real story.

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  2. Excellent how the Branch & Caro books dovetail those years. I read the first Branch volume when it came out but I think i'd like to revisit it as well as those others. This 2nd volume seems to have maybe even more in it than the first one. Your review is excellent.

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    1. Yes, this volume adds even more to the entire Civil Rights scene. I don't think he left anyone out! I am happy you liked my review.

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  3. As always, I am impressed with your reading. This is quite a commitment to a serious and complicated period of history.

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    1. Well, thanks Dorothy. I am interested in all of it and in part it is research for my book, so that keeps me going.

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  4. Great review! This sounds like a book that should be a 'must read' list somewhere. I'd never even heard of it till your post and with this kind of important topic... that just should not be.

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    1. Thank you, Carrie. You are right about it being a "must read" for all.

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  5. Pillar of Fire is headed to my reading wishlist! Thank you for your great review of this book.

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    1. You are welcome. It is a great piece of historical work about our country. Parts of the book take place in California, namely Los Angeles and Berkeley.

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  6. Great review, Judy! Someday after I have read the volumes I have bought on the American Revolution and Founding Fathers, I will probably be ready to tackle other relevant tomes on "more recent" American history, such as this one.

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    1. Thank you, Carmen. I am glad you enjoyed my review. There is so much history to learn. Perhaps it is good that due to trying to write my autobiography, I have limited my history studies to the 20th century. I will let you inform me about what you read on the American Revolution and the Founding Fathers. Growing up in New Jersey, I got a lot about that in school for which I am grateful.

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