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Mary Ronan Drew's Reviews > Parting the Waters: Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement 1954-63
Parting the Waters: Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement 1954-63
by Taylor Branch
by Taylor Branch
Mary Ronan Drew's review
bookshelves: kindle
Feb 01, 11
bookshelves: kindle
Read from December 01, 2009 to February 01, 2011 — I own a copy, read count: once before
First-rate history of the civil rights movement. I've read it many years ago and have now re-read it very slowly on my Kindle.
In addition to the voter registration, sit-ins, bus boycott, and marches of the early civil rights movement, much of this first of three volumes involves the battle between J Edgar Hoover's FBI and the Kennedy White House. Bobby Kennedy devoted much time and energy to defeating organized crime before his brother was elected to the presidency, with enormous support from the Mafia and other crime figures who were, shall we say "colleagues" of his father during Prohibition when he made his fortune.
This put Bobby Kennedy in a difficult position vis a vis Hoover and the FBI and gave him little leverage when Hoover wanted to go after Martin Luther King, whom he labeled the most dangerous communist in the country in the early 60s with no evidence whatever. In fact, because he had so much power over the Kennedys he got permission for the FBI to wire tap MLK and his associates. Those thousands of hours of tapes, now transcribed and available to historians, show no evidence of communist sympathy in the King camp.
Ironically, Taylor Branch was able to write this book because of those tapes which reveal the meetings between Dr King and his associates and rivals and the phone calls to and from donors such as Harry Belefonte, the strategy sessions and the mournful realization that others in the movement had been beaten and killed during the struggle.
A classic of American history and one I'm certainly glad I took the time to re-read.
2011 No 20
Coming soon: Nicholas Blake, A Question of Proof
In addition to the voter registration, sit-ins, bus boycott, and marches of the early civil rights movement, much of this first of three volumes involves the battle between J Edgar Hoover's FBI and the Kennedy White House. Bobby Kennedy devoted much time and energy to defeating organized crime before his brother was elected to the presidency, with enormous support from the Mafia and other crime figures who were, shall we say "colleagues" of his father during Prohibition when he made his fortune.
This put Bobby Kennedy in a difficult position vis a vis Hoover and the FBI and gave him little leverage when Hoover wanted to go after Martin Luther King, whom he labeled the most dangerous communist in the country in the early 60s with no evidence whatever. In fact, because he had so much power over the Kennedys he got permission for the FBI to wire tap MLK and his associates. Those thousands of hours of tapes, now transcribed and available to historians, show no evidence of communist sympathy in the King camp.
Ironically, Taylor Branch was able to write this book because of those tapes which reveal the meetings between Dr King and his associates and rivals and the phone calls to and from donors such as Harry Belefonte, the strategy sessions and the mournful realization that others in the movement had been beaten and killed during the struggle.
A classic of American history and one I'm certainly glad I took the time to re-read.
2011 No 20
Coming soon: Nicholas Blake, A Question of Proof
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Reading Progress
| 11/23/2010 | "I'm 82% of the way through the book, according to my Kindle." | |||
| 12/09/2010 |
|
83.0% | "Moving from 82 to 83% doesn't sound like I've made much progress but it's at least 50 pages of this very long book." |
