April 9, 1998 Author Taylor Branch to Discuss Latest Book

Contact: Craig D'Ooge (202) 707-9189

Writer and historian Taylor Branch will discuss his latest book, Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963-1965, at the Library of Congress on Thursday, June 18, at 6 p.m in the Mumford Room, sixth floor, Madison Building, 101 Independence Ave. S.E. The event, co-sponsored by the Library's Humanities and Social Sciences Division and the Center for the Book's "Books & Beyond" series, is free and open to the public.

Taylor Branch won the Pulitzer Prize for history in 1989 for Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-1963, his first volume of an intended trilogy. As a history of the civil rights movement and a biography of Martin Luther King Jr., these two volumes focus on major social changes in the United States.

Mr. Branch lectures frequently on the civil rights movement and has written and co-authored fiction and nonfiction, including Labyrinth (with Eugene Propper, 1982), The Empire Blues (1981), Second Wind (with Bill Russell, 1979), and Blowing the Whistle (with Charles Peters, 1972.) He has been a staff member of Washington Monthly, Harper's, and Esquire.

The Center for the Book was established in the Library of Congress in 1977 to stimulate public interest in books, reading, and libraries. The Humanities and Social Sciences Division provides reference service and collection development in the Main, Local History and Genealogy, Business, and Microform reading rooms, and sponsors lectures in the arts, humanities, and social sciences.

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PR 98-060
1998-04-09
ISSN 0731-3527