Pillar of Fire
America in the King Years 1963-65
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Narrated by:
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Janina Edwards
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Prentice Onayemi
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By:
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Taylor Branch
About this listen
From Pulitzer Prize-winning author Taylor Branch, the second part of his epic trilogy on Martin Luther King, Jr. and the American Civil Rights Movement. In the second volume of his three-part history, a monumental trilogy that began with Parting the Waters, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, Taylor Branch portrays the Civil Rights Movement at its zenith, recounting the climactic struggles as they commanded the national stage.
Beginning with the Nation of Islam and conflict over racial separatism, Pillar of Fire takes the listener to Mississippi and Alabama: Birmingham, the murder of Medgar Evers, the "March on Washington," the Civil Rights Act, and voter registration drives. In 1964, King is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Branch's magnificent trilogy makes clear why the Civil Rights Movement, and indeed King's leadership, are among the nation's enduring achievements. In bringing these decades alive, preserving the integrity of those who marched and died, Branch gives us a crucial part of our history and heritage.
©2007 Taylor Branch (P)2019 Simon & Schuster AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Winner of the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for Biography and the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, this is the most comprehensive book ever written about the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. David J. Garrow had unrestricted access to Martin Luther King's personal papers, to thousands of pages of newly released FBI documents and more than 700 interviews with King's closest friends and enemies.
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great but long
- By Thomas on 04-29-10
By: David J. Garrow
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Bobby Kennedy
- The Making of a Liberal Icon
- By: Larry Tye
- Narrated by: Marc Cashman
- Length: 19 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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History remembers Robert F. Kennedy as a racial healer, a tribune for the poor, and the last progressive knight of a bygone era of American politics. But Kennedy's enshrinement in the liberal pantheon was actually the final stage of a journey that had its beginnings in the conservative 1950s. In Bobby Kennedy, Larry Tye peels away layers of myth and misconception to paint a complete portrait of this singularly fascinating figure.
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Absorbing
- By Jean on 01-18-17
By: Larry Tye
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Malcolm X
- A Life of Reinvention
- By: Manning Marable
- Narrated by: G. Valmont Thomas
- Length: 22 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Of the great figure in 20th-century American history perhaps none is more complex and controversial than Malcolm X. Constantly rewriting his own story, he became a criminal, a minister, a leader, and an icon, all before being felled by assassins' bullets at age 39. Through his tireless work and countless speeches he empowered hundreds of thousands of black Americans to create better lives and stronger communities while establishing the template for the self-actualized, independent African American man.
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invites further reading on Malcolm X
- By connie on 05-14-11
By: Manning Marable
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The Glory and the Dream
- A Narrative History of America, 1932 - 1972
- By: William Manchester
- Narrated by: Jeff Riggenbach
- Length: 57 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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This great time capsule of a book captures the abundant popular history of the United States from 1932 to 1972. It encompasses politics, military history, economics, the lively arts, science, fashion, fads, social change, sexual mores, communications, graffiti...everything and anything indigenous that can be captured in print.
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Fabulous book, good narration, bad recording
- By Paula on 07-10-08
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City of Scoundrels
- The 12 Days of Disaster That Gave Birth to Modern Chicago
- By: Gary Krist
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 9 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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When 1919 began, the city of Chicago seemed on the verge of transformation. Modernizers had an audacious, expensive plan to turn the city from a brawling, unglamorous place into "the Metropolis of the World". But just as the dream seemed within reach, pandemonium broke loose and the city’s highest ambitions were suddenly under attack by the same unbridled energies that had given birth to them in the first place.
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Great History of a Great City
- By Cookie on 08-30-12
By: Gary Krist
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The Greatest Comeback
- How Richard Nixon Rose from Defeat to Create the New Majority
- By: Patrick J. Buchanan
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 12 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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After suffering stinging defeats in the 1960 presidential election against John F. Kennedy, and in the 1962 California gubernatorial election, Nixon's career was declared dead by Washington press and politicians alike. Yet on January 20, 1969, just six years after he had said his political life was over, Nixon would stand taking the oath of office as 37th President of the United States. How did Richard Nixon resurrect a ruined career and reunite a shattered and fractured Republican Party to capture the White House?
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The comeback kid
- By Jean on 07-23-14
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Nixon's White House Wars
- The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever
- By: Patrick J. Buchanan
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 17 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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From Vietnam to the Southern Strategy, from the opening of China to the scandal of Watergate, Pat Buchanan - speechwriter and senior adviser to President Nixon - tells the untold story of Nixon's embattled White House, from its historic wins to it devastating defeats. In his inaugural address, Nixon held out a hand in friendship to Republicans and Democrats alike. But by the fall of 1969, massive demonstrations in Washington and around the country had been mounted to break his presidency.
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Interesting
- By Jean on 06-15-17
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Waging a Good War
- A Military History of the Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1968
- By: Thomas E. Ricks
- Narrated by: JD Jackson
- Length: 14 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Thomas E. Ricks offers an utterly new perspective on America’s greatest moral revolution—the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s—and its legacy today. While the Movement has become synonymous with Martin Luther King Jr.’s ethos of nonviolence, Ricks draws on his deep knowledge of tactics and strategy to advance a surprising but revelatory idea: the greatest victories for Black Americans of the past century were won not by idealism alone, but through recruiting, training, discipline, and organization—the hallmarks of any successful military campaign.
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I was born and raised in Alabama. Jim Crow Era.
- By Moses Pitts on 10-06-22
By: Thomas E. Ricks
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Dallas 1963
- By: Bill Minutaglio, Steven L. Davis
- Narrated by: Bill Minutaglio, Tony Messano, Steven L. Davis
- Length: 12 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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In the months and weeks before the fateful November 22nd, 1963, Dallas was brewing with political passions, a city crammed with larger-than-life characters dead-set against the Kennedy presidency. These included rabid warriors like defrocked military general Edwin A. Walker; the world's richest oil baron, H. L. Hunt; the leader of the largest Baptist congregation in the world, W.A. Criswell; and the media mogul Ted Dealey, who raucously confronted JFK and whose family name adorns the plaza where the president was murdered.
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American lunacy, listenable as it gets
- By Philo on 10-14-17
By: Bill Minutaglio, and others
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The Gay Revolution
- The Story of the Struggle
- By: Lillian Faderman
- Narrated by: Donna Postel
- Length: 29 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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The Gay Revolution begins in the 1950s, when law classified gays and lesbians as criminals, the psychiatric profession saw them as mentally ill, the churches saw them as sinners, and society victimized them with irrational hatred. Against this dark backdrop, a few brave people began to fight back, paving the way for the revolutionary changes of the 1960s and beyond.
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An outstanding book.
- By David Farley on 10-21-15
By: Lillian Faderman
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Excellent
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Great King bio and an engaging take on an era
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Excellent
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Giving voice to the voiceless, the Chicago Defender condemned Jim Crow, catalyzed the Great Migration, and focused the electoral power of black America. Robert S. Abbott founded the Defender in 1905, smuggled hundreds of thousands of copies into the most isolated communities in the segregated South, and was dubbed a "Modern Moses", becoming one of the first black millionaires in the process.
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There's an unexpected genius here
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Parting the Waters
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This audio adaptation focuses primarily on Martin Luther King, Jr. and the key moments that defined his rise to the forefront of the civil rights movement. From Rosa Parks' monumental arrest in Montgomery to King's imprisonment in Birmingham and his triumphant march on Washington, Taylor Branch provides an unsurpassed portrait of King's rise to greatness.
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Badly/horribly abridged
- By warty bloggin on 02-11-13
By: Taylor Branch
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The Children
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awesome and inspiring
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Excellent
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Great King bio and an engaging take on an era
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The King Years
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Excellent
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The Defender
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There's an unexpected genius here
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
This audio adaptation focuses primarily on Martin Luther King, Jr. and the key moments that defined his rise to the forefront of the civil rights movement. From Rosa Parks' monumental arrest in Montgomery to King's imprisonment in Birmingham and his triumphant march on Washington, Taylor Branch provides an unsurpassed portrait of King's rise to greatness.
-
-
Badly/horribly abridged
- By warty bloggin on 02-11-13
By: Taylor Branch
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awesome and inspiring
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What listeners say about Pillar of Fire
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Chris Hummel
- 02-19-22
Excellent Treatment of Movement's Middle Years
This second in Branch's series of biographies/histories of the Civil Rights movement, building to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is perhaps a bit less engaging then his first (Parting the Waters). In part, it is because the first six chapters or so of this work run over the same ground (even using some of the same language) as the end of the earlier work, albeit slightly enriched by a discussion of northern and urban Civil Rights struggles, with special focus on Elijah Mohammed and Malcolm X. Branch has no special love for either of these men, with more venom (understandably) reserved for Mohammed. Though sometimes sympathetically, Malcolm is presented as a figure who is often unfocused and perhaps undecided in his approach, especially after his open break with Mohammed. He largely presents Malcolm's legend, as presented in his posthumous autobiography, as having larger impact than he had in his lifetime. Branch also continues the fractious story of the mainline movement, its conflicts between elements (SNCC, SCLC) and individual leaders over policy and personality moving from the late Kennedy to early Johnson administration. King and other leaders' marital infidelities and other short comings are discussed in terms of the Hoover FBI's efforts to exploit them and discredit them (ultimately unsuccessful). Branch's extensive study of tapes and documents from major figures, including wire tap reports give us a close view of a movement under pressure and scrutiny. Despite a few minor issues, I look forward to hearing volume 3, when even the limited consensus within the movement begins to break down after the victories of 1964 and 1965 in relation to Vietnam and the continued problems of race in America.
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- Bill Branham
- 12-10-21
The Details behind the Story
Make it come alive. Sometimes you feel like you are in the room listening to the dialog. The narration is excellent. Their voices are both calming and conveying information in a way that is easy to accept . I find the switching of narrator's each chapter is a great technique.
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