At Canaan's Edge

America in the King Years, 1965-68

By: Taylor Branch

Narrated by: Joe Morton

At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68 is the final volume in Taylor Branch's magnificent history of America in the years of the Civil Rights Movement and Vietnam War, recognized universally as the definitive account and ultimate recognition of Martin Luther King's heroic place in the nation's history.

The final volume of Taylor Branch's monumental, much honored, and definitive history of the Civil Rights Movement (America in the King Years), At Canaan's Edge covers the final years of King's struggle to hold his non-violent movement together in the face of factionalism within the Movement, hostility and harassment of the Johnson Administration, the country torn apart by Vietnam, and his own attempt (and failure) to take the Freedom Movement north.

At Canaan's Edge traces a seminal era in our defining national story, freedom. The narrative resumes in Selma, crucible of the voting rights struggle for black people across the South. The time is early 1965, when the modern Civil Rights Movement enters its second decade since the Supreme Court's Brown decision declared segregation by race a violation of the Constitution.

From Selma, King's non-violent Movement is under threat from competing forces inside and outside. Branch chronicles the dramatic voting rights drives in Mississippi and Alabama, Meredith's murder, the challenge to King from the Johnson Administration and the FBI and other enemies. When King tries to bring his Movement north (to Chicago), he falters. Finally we reach Memphis, the garbage strike, King's assassination.

Branch's magnificent trilogy makes clear why the Civil Rights Movement, and indeed King's leadership, are among the nation's enduring achievements.©2006 Taylor Branch; (P)2006 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved. Audioworks is an imprint of Simon & Schuster Audio Division.

A tremendous trilogy

This is a tremendous trilogy. That takes you through the story of MLK and the civil rights movement. A terrific audiobook.

Required Reading

This book should be required reading for every African American regardless of age.
Martin Luther King will always be larger than life. This book screams why that is so with so many important details that may be missed otherwise.

Essential reading, to understand 21st Century social/political events

The trilogy on the Martin Luther King Jr years, written by Taylor Branch, is a thoroughly detailed study of the transitional 1960s. Even for those of us who were activists for social, racial, and gender equality, there were important facts revealed in the 3 books, that were not known at the time to the general public.Having lived the years of idealistic protest, and living now during Black Lives Matter, I think the trilogy, of which this is the third book, should be required reading for all high school students.

painful history

painful history. important to know. a great deal of detail. wort your time y listen

I hate abridged books

I listened to unabridged versions of the first two volumes of this work and loved every word. This was got very confusing and I missed the detail. I have the book and I guess I'll have to read it. Never again will I try abridged versions.