In December, 1955 a librarian in Montgomery, Alabama sat down and wrote a letter to the local newspaper. The boycott of city buses by Montgomery's citizens of color, she wrote, would make history.

   To most readers, this confirmed Juliette Morgan's status as a complete ninny, but her words proved prophetic. The Montgomery Bus Boycott catapulted a young minister named Martin Luther King, Jr., to the forefront of a scarcely simmering civil rights movement.

   That movement would heat to a boiling point and result in wide-ranging civil rights legislation in1964 and 1968, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. It would profoundly change Martin Luther King's life. For the next twelve years he would live with daily death threats, attempts on his life, and bombings of his home. In the end his murder would mark the end of an era.

   Taylor Branch's Parting the Waters is subtitled "America in the King Years 1954-63." It reads like a novel. It is the first book in his civil rights trilogy America in the King Years . The second volume, covering 1963-65, is Pillar of Fire. The final volume, At Canaan's Edge, covers 1965-68.

   Branch paints the background to this turbulent period of American history. Each volume ends with a murder. The author takes us to the streets and the jails where the battles were fought, and he adeptly describes the social forces in collision. In doing so he also paints a vivid portrait of Martin Luther King, the man.

From the "Washington Speech" by Martin Luther King:

"I say to you today, my friends, that in spite of the difficulties and frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.'

"I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.

"I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

"I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

Voices of the Civil Rights Movement
Black American Freedom Songs 1960-1966

Smithsonian Folkways

The sounds of the times have been captured in a two CD boxed set called Voices of the Civil Rights Movement from Smithsonian Folkways. Some of the songs were recorded at mass meetings, and all of them capture the energy of the movement.

Songs include "If You Miss Me from the Back of the Bus," "Oh, Freedom," "We Shall Overcome," "Governor Wallace," and many more. An excellent booklet by Bernice Johnson Reagon provides a context for the music.

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Of all his gifts, Martin Luther King's greatest was oratory. He was a speaker who moved people in a way few in the 20th Century could. His Washington Speech (popularly known as "I Have A Dream") ranks with Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and Second Inaugural.

Many audio collections of his speeches exist. A current one, A Call to Conscience: the Landmark Speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., contains 12 speeches including the "Washington Speech" and "I've Been to the Mountaintop," which he delivered the night before he was murdered.