At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years 1965-68.

• Author: Kreyche, Gerald F.
• Position: Book review

AT CANAAN'S EDGE America in the King Years 1965-68 BY TAYLOR BRANCH SIMON & SCHUSTER 2006, 1001 PAGES, $35.00

This book is the last in a trilogy that is a call to conscience, a poignant remembrance of man's inhumanity to man. It highlights the last three years in the life of Martin Luther King and his quest for civil rights for the black man in America. The earlier years of King's life were covered in Taylor Branch's Pulitzer Prize-winning Parting the Waters and the second volume, Pillar of Fire. Most of this fiery Baptist preacher's life concentrated on redressing social wrongs and establishing civil rights. In this manner, he was the American version of India's Mahatma Gandhi, an exponent of nonviolence to achieve political goals.

King's philosophy was well summed up in a statement made on the occasion of his winning the Nobel Peace Prize: "I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality." In this, one honestly can say that he put his money where his mouth was, as the civil rights movement was beset with varying and contradictory plans to achieve its goals. No wonder, as the names of its proponents, Stokely Carmichael, Malcolm X, Jesse Jackson, Bud Wilkins, Julian Bond, Ralph Abernathy, James Meredith, Andrew Young, among others, come to mind. Despite being pulled this way and that, King stuck to his vision of nonviolence as the only way to go.

The impetus for civil rights for blacks was given a sendoff with the 1955 Montgomery, Ala., bus boycott. The occasion was the refusal of Rosa Parks to move out of the white section and sit in the rear. The solidarity of the protest lasted sufficiently long to win African-Americans the right to sit wherever they pleased. Resentment was the reaction of many whites, but a step forward in civil rights had been taken. Lynchings, church burnings and bombings, and the murdering of supporters who rallied to the cause--all raised the consciousness of more and more citizens who began to feel ashamed of America's treatment of blacks. The march on Selma, Ala., and the brutality used to try to suppress the event gave further impetus to the cause. The loquacious King shrewdly used the bully pulpit of black...