Taylor Branch

A List
3/15/10

Pulitzer Winner Taylor Branch To Speak At SLU

CANTON - Pulitzer Prize-winning author Taylor Branch will give a talk titled "Race, Violence and Democracy: What Rules America?" on Wednesday, March 24, at 7:30 p.m. in Eben Holden at St. Lawrence University. The event, part of the Contemporary Issues Forum, is open to the public, free of charge; a book-signing will follow the talk.

Branch is the best-selling author of Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63, which won the Pulitzer Prize; Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963-65 and At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-1968. Branch began his career as a magazine journalist for The Washington Monthly, Harper's and Esquire. His other works include the book The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History with the President.

In this talk, Branch will examine a number of questions, including if democracy is a complex political structure built on votes, and votes are evolved bits of nonviolence, then what is the true role of violence in a democracy? What is the relationship between violence and power? Does it change? How does the civil rights movement fit into this larger history?

The Contemporary Issues Forum brings experts and participants in the making of news to campus throughout the academic year.

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