This is one of the best nonfiction books that I have ever read. Easily deserving of a Pulitzer, Branch documents the early history of the Civil Rights movement in a thorough but incredibly engrossing style. His approach is nuanced and he does not create black and white characters. King is a flawed individual who nevertheless succeeds in rising to greatest, to a large extent, as a product of his times.

But after reading this book, one is thoroughly astounded and appalled at what life was like in the 1950s in the South and how passive (resistant) the federal government was in providing aid to the civil rights movement. One finds both Kennedys just short of obstructionist while the FBI and all Southern forces worked actively against King and the Civil Rights Movement.

The style is easy and the story riveting.