A Look at the Civil Rights Era at 'A Day for Book Lovers'

McDaniel College and the Friends of Carroll County Public Library will host the third annual “A Day for Book Lovers” featuring Pulitzer Prize-winning author Taylor Branch on Sept. 23.

Taylor Branch is best known for his landmark narrative history of the civil rights era, “America in the King Years.” The trilogy’s first book, “Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63,” won the Pulitzer Prize for History along with other awards, including the National Book Critics Circle Award. Two successive volumes also gained critical and popular success, “Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963-65,” and “At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68," according to a CCPL news release. 

His latest book, “The King Years: Historic Moments in the Civil Rights Movement,” identifies eight essential movements from the civil rights movement, and places each in historical context. Branch received a five-year MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 1991 and the National Humanities Medal in 1999. 

This event, which has sold out the past two years, is scheduled for Monday, Sept. 23 from 11 a.m. – 3 p.m. in Decker Center Forum at McDaniel College. The cost to attend is $20, which includes lunch and a copy of Branch’s latest book, “The King Years: Historic Moments in the Civil Rights Movement.” 

To register, visit https://library.carr.org/booklovers/ or call the Carroll County Public Library at 410-386-4500. For more information about McDaniel College, visit www.mcdaniel.edu.

Information in this article taken from a Carroll County Public Library news release.