About Taylor
Branch
Taylor Branch is an American author and public speaker
best known for his landmark narrative history of the civil rights era, America
in the King Years. The trilogy’s first book, Parting the Waters: America in
the King Years, 1954-63, won the Pulitzer Prize and numerous other awards
in 1989. Two successive volumes also gained critical and popular success: Pillar
of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963-65, and At Canaan’s Edge:
America in the King Years, 1965-1968. Decades later, all three books remain
in demand.
In the October 2011 issue of The Atlantic, Branch
published an influential cover story entitled “The Shame of College Sports,”
which author and NPR commentator Frank Deford said “may well be the most
important article ever written about college sports.” The article touched
off continuing national debate.
Aside from writing, Branch speaks before a variety of
audiences—colleges, high schools, churches, synagogues, mosques, political and
professional groups. He has discussed doctrines of nonviolence with prisoners
at San Quentin as well as officers at the National War College. He has
presented seminars on civil rights at Oxford University and in sixth-grade
classrooms. His 2008 address at the National Cathedral marked the 40th
anniversary of Dr. King’s last Sunday sermon from that pulpit. In 2009, he gave
the Theodore H. White Lecture on the Press and Politics at Harvard.
Branch began his career in 1970 as a staff journalist for
The Washington Monthly, Harper’s, and Esquire. He holds honorary doctoral
degrees from ten colleges and universities. Other citations include the Dayton
Literary Peace Prize Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008 and the National
Humanities Medal in 1999. More information is available at taylorbranch.com.
Recent Work
In Branch’s latest book, The King Years: Historic
Moments in the Civil Rights Movement (Simon & Schuster), Branch has
identified eighteen essential moments from the Civil Rights Movement, and
providing selections from his trilogy, has placed each moment in historical
context with a newly written introduction. The captivating result is a
slender but comprehensive view of America in the turbulent, transformative
1960s, by our nation’s foremost authoritative voice on the subject.
Background
This activity is funded, in part, by a grant from the
Northwest Minnesota Arts Council and the Minnesota arts and cultural heritage
fund appropriated by the Minnesota Legislature with money from the vote of the
people of Minnesota on November 4, 2008. Other sponsors include the Northwest
Minnesota Foundation, the Lake Agassiz Regional Library, Crookston High School,
and Academic Affairs, Campus Ministry, Concerts & Lectures, Honors Program,
and Career and Counseling at the U of M Crookston.
Earlier in the day of activities in memory of Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr., designed around the theme "Faces of Civil Rights: It
isnt' just a Black Thing" will take place. The day marks a Red River
Valley Celebration of Dr. King with events at the University of North Dakota
and the University of Minnesota Crookston throughout the day.
