At Canaan's Edge

At Canaan's Edge by Taylor Branch

Category: History Grade: B

This is the last volume of Branch's monumental trilogy called America in the King Years. Its an absolutely exhaustive (> 2200 pages total) history of the peak years of the civil rights movement in the United States. While not up to the level of the first volume, this is still a very readable book that leaves out no details about what was going on in the movement during the years from 1965 through the King assassination. As I had said with the second volume, the book suffers from the fact that, while significant progress was made in civil rights during this period, it was also a period filled with tragedy -- the racial violence in the South, the urban riots of Watts and other cities, the Robert Kennedy and King assassinations and, of course, the growing pain of the Viet Nam war.

The distractions that infected the civil rights movement in the early 60s, especially the divisions around Malcolm X, effectively take over the movement in this period. On the one hand, the non-violent philosophy on which the movement was based begins to break down as is seen in the riots and the emergence of the "Black Power" organizations led by defectors like Stokely Carmichael. The dissension and in-fighting inside the SCLC and other predominately black organizations also grew during this period fueled by serious arguments about what the roll of white Americans should be in these organizations and not-so-serious distractions like the ambition of Jesse Jackson and the just-plain-nuttiness of Adam Clayton Powell. Ultimately, the movement was largely overwhelmed by the anti-war movement, one that increasingly called on the time, power and conscience of King himself.

As always, when I read about this period of American history, I'm drawn to the contradictions of Lyndon Johnson. On domestic issues, Johnson could easily be one of the most courageous President's we've had. His complete personal devotion to the inequities of racism and the problem of poverty are undeniable. I still remember watching his speech before Congress urging them to pass the Civil Rights Act on the heals of the violence in Selma. Johnson was not a great speaker. His forte was going one-on-one in people's faces. He was awkward and stiff behind a podium. What this did, however, was that, when he was impassioned and eloquent, he really flew. The speech began simply -- "I speak tonight for the dignity of man and the destiny of democracy." -- but the speech reached its emotional peak when Johnson really shocked the world with a few words -- "Because it is not just Negroes, but really it's all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And--we--shall--overcome!" By invoking the anthem of the civil rights movement, Johnson virtually guaranteed passage of the bill in the most dramatic way, knowing he was probably losing the South for his Democratic Party for a generation.

Ultimately, as we know (and as is relevant today), Johnson showed a complete lack of courage when it came to Viet Nam. Its clear from recordings and notes that Johnson anguished over America's increasing roll in the Far East. There were times when he admitted privately there was no possibility of any meaningful victory there. But he seemed powerless to stop the slide in to the bog. In a lot of ways, Johnson lost his presidency and his position in history to machismo. He could have been (and in some ways was) one of the best of the 20th century. Instead, he'll always be remembered as the Viet Nam President.

A couple of other observations that have to be made after reading this series (some of which I've made before):

• for decades, this country was largely run by J. Edgar Hoover. His flagrant disregard of law, chain-of-command and, in a lot of cases, decency, allowed him to control leaders of all kinds both in and out of government. This could be the closest the U.S. has ever come to a dictatorship.
• in an interesting reversal, Hoover's illegal wiretapping and bugging of King and the people around him, ended up giving us a significantly more complete picture of the movement than would have been possible by any other means.
• you can make a pretty good case that the people who pushed the civil rights agenda most effectively, if inadvertently, were the hard-core segregationists of the Deep South. The arbitrary killings, beatings, torturings plus the mostly petty laws designed only to keep the former slaves in their place were so morally reprehensible that even Americans who were ambivalent about the Negro couldn't help but be outraged.

This is a serious series and a major commitment for a reader. But, its a commitment well worth reading. The picture it gives of King and his legacy and his times is clear and invaluable.