Taylor Branch

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Taylor Branch (born January 14, 1947 in Atlanta, Georgia) is an American author and historian best known for his award-winning trilogy of books chronicling the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the history of the American civil rights movement. The third and final volume of the 2,912-page trilogy — collectively called America in the King Years — was released in January 2006. Branch lives in Baltimore, Maryland with his wife, Christina Macy, and their two children, Macy (b.1980) and Franklin (b. 1983)

1 Early life and education
2 Career
3 Books
4 Notes
5 External links

[edit] Early life and education

Branch graduated from The Westminster Schools in Atlanta in 1964. From there, he went to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on a prestigious Morehead Scholarship. He graduated in 1968 and went on to earn an M.P.A. from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University in 1970.

He was a lecturer in politics and history at Goucher College from 1998 to 2000.

[edit] Career

Branch served as an assistant editor at The Washington Monthly from 1970 to 1973; he was Washington editor of Harper's from 1973 to 1976; and he was Washington columnist for Esquire Magazine from 1976 to 1977. He also has written for a wide variety of other publications, including The New York Times Magazine, Sport, The New Republic, and Texas Monthly.

In 1972, Branch helped run the Texas campaign of Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern. Branch's co-leaders in the effort were Bill Clinton, later to be president of the United States, and a Houston lawyer named Julius Glickman.

He received a five-year MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (also known as a "genius grant") in 1991 and the National Humanities Medal in 1999.