 | Thisbiography of a living personneeds additionalcitations forverification. Please help by addingreliable sources.Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced orpoorly sourcedmust be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentiallylibelous. Find sources: "Taylor Branch" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(October 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Taylor Branch | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | (1947-01-14)January 14, 1947 (age 78) |
| Education | University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (BA) Princeton University (MPA) |
| Genre | Nonfiction |
| Notable works | America in the King Years |
| Notable awards | MacArthur Fellowship National Humanities Medal Pulitzer Prize for History |
| Spouse | Christina Macy |
| Children | 2 |
Taylor Branch (born January 14, 1947) is an American author and historian who wrote aPulitzer Prize winning trilogy chronicling the life ofMartin Luther King Jr. and much of the history of the Americancivil rights movement. The final volume of the 2,912-page trilogy, collectively calledAmerica in the King Years, was released in January 2006, and an abridgment,The King Years: Historic Moments in the Civil Rights Movement, was published in 2013.
Branch graduated fromThe Westminster Schools inAtlanta in 1964. From there, he went to theUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on aMorehead Scholarship.[1] He graduated in 1968 and went on to earn anM.P.A. from theWoodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs atPrinceton University in 1970.
Branch served as an assistant editor atThe Washington Monthly from 1970 to 1973; he was Washington editor ofHarper's from 1973 to 1976;and he was Washington columnist forEsquire Magazine from 1976 to 1977. He also has written for a variety of other publications, includingThe New York Times Magazine,Sport,The New Republic, andTexas Monthly.
In 1972, Branch worked for theTexas campaign of Democratic presidential nomineeGeorge McGovern. Branch shared an apartment in Austin withBill Clinton, and the two developed a friendship that continues today. He also worked withHillary Rodham, Bill's then-girlfriend and Yale Law School classmate, and later Clinton's wife.
Branch's book on former presidentBill Clinton,The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History With The President, was written from many tape-recorded interviews and conversations between the two, most of which occurred in the White House during Clinton's two terms in office and which were not disclosed publicly until 2007.[2]
Branch was alecturer inpolitics andhistory atGoucher College from 1998 to 2000.[citation needed] Branch hasalso taught at theUniversity of Baltimore.
Taylor Branch received a five-yearMacArthur Foundation Fellowship (also known as a "genius grant") in 1991 and theNational Humanities Medal in 1999. In 2008, he received theDayton Literary Peace Prize's Lifetime Achievement Award,[3] presented to him by special guestEdwin C. Moses.[4]
In 2013, he co-producedSchooled: The Price of College Sports based on his 2011 bookThe Cartel.[citation needed]
in 2015, he received the BIO Award fromBiographers International Organization, for his contributions to the art and craft of biography.[5]
A group ofBlack Hebrew Israelites described as a cult inThe New York Times were systematically denied Israeli citizenship over several decades. In 1981, a group of American civil rights activists led byBayard Rustin investigated and concluded that racism was likely not the cause of the Black Hebrews' treatment.[6] In 1992, Branch opined that the Black Hebrew Israelites' denial of citizenship under the Israeli law of return was because of alleged anti-Black sentiment among Israeli Jews.[7] In 1998, Branch was criticized bySeth Forman, who said Branch's claims seemed to be baseless, particularly in light of Israel's airlift of thousands of black Ethiopian Jews in the early 1990s.[8]
Branch lives inBaltimore, Maryland, with his wife, Christina Macy, and their two children, Macy (born 1980) and Franklin (born 1983).
TheAmerica in the King Years trilogy consists of:
Parting the Waters won thePulitzer Prize for History in 1989,National Book Critics Circle Award for General Nonfiction in 1988,English-Speaking Union Book Award in 1989, theMartin Luther King Memorial Prize in 1989, and was a Finalist forthe National Book Award for Nonfiction in 1989.
Pillar of Fire won theAmerican Bar Association's Silver Gavel Award in 1999, theImus Book Award in 1999, andthe Hillman Prize in 1998[11]At Canaan's Edge won theHeartland Prize for nonfiction from theChicago Tribune in 2006.[12]
| 1917–1919 |   | |
|---|---|---|
| 1920–1939 |
| |
| 1940–1959 |
| |
| 1960–1979 |
| |
| 1980–1999 |
| |
| 2000–2021 |
| |
