Volume 45, Number 6 · April 9, 1998

Bravest and Best

By Russell Baker
Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963-1965
by Taylor Branch

Simon and Schuster, 746 pp., $30.00

The Last Crusade: Martin Luther King, Jr., the FBI, and the Poor People's Campaign
by Gerald D. McKnight

Westview, 192 pp., $25.00

But for Birmingham: The Local and National Movements in the Civil Rights Struggle
by Glenn T. Eskew

University of North Carolina Press, 434 pp., $19.95 (paper)

When the Israelites fled Egypt, God parted the waters of the sea and went before them in the form of a cloud to show them the way and of a pillar of fire to light their path by night. So says Exodus. Parting the Waters was the title of Volume One of Taylor Branch's huge, sprawling history of the civil rights movement, published ten years ago. Now we have Volume Two, titled Pillar of Fire.



Review, 5340 words

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