In At Canaan's Edge, the concluding volume of Taylor Branch's magisterial study of the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S.A between 1954 and 1968, the focus is on the period framed by the march on Montgomery and Martin Luther King's assassination in Memphis: a time span of scarcely more than 3 years, but one full of keynote legislation, clashing ideologies and shattered promises, where triumph and despair became familiar companions. Here we find King endeavouring to deploy the non violent methods honed in struggles across the Deep South on a nationwide crusade for social justice and peace in Vietnam. This is old fashioned storytelling history at its best, which by interweaving the roles of individuals and mass movements creates a narrative which places set piece confrontations like Pettus Bridge and the Watts riots within a broader historical context. Branch is a reliable guide, his grasp of detail and breadth of approach couched within readable prose equally suited to drawing out the drama of a King speech or a Klan murder.
Branch is particularly strong on highlighting the root causes of the increasing divisions within Civil Rights Organizations, the developing pride in Black identity and the emergence of groups like the Panthers alongside official attempts to compromise King's practice of peaceful protest. As events move towards their tragic denouement on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, we are left in no doubt that the assassin's bullet killed an agenda and not just a leader. However, ironically it is the counterpoint account of the decline and fall of the most progressive post-war America administration led by Lyndon Johnson that packs equal punch. As Johnson's vision of The Great Society is undermined by burgeoning military estimates and a conservative backlash, Branch's prose becomes an anguished threnody to American Liberalism. The fortunes of King and Johnson are shown to have startling parallels not least in their increasing isolation from their own constituencies.
This final instalment is a worthy conclusion to a trilogy which probably represents the best single study of a momentous period in American history. Here is a book which compels the reader to reflect on the moral, political and ethical dilemmas it so effectively dissects. Strongly recommended to all those with an interest in history or the shaping of the contemporary United States.
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