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Taylor Branch

Taylor Branch is an American author and public speaker best known for his 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. In October 2011, The Atlantic published Branch’s capsule history of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA): “The Shame of College Sports.” When that essay sparked national debate, Byliner.com released an expanded e-book version called The Cartel, which is available online or by print-on-demand. Branch’s 2009 memoir, The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History with the President, tells of his unprecedented eight-year project to gather a sitting president’s comprehensive oral history on tape. @taylorbranch