Public Lecture by author Taylor Branch: "Race, Violence and Democracy: What Rules America?"

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?

Taylor Branch is the bestselling 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. The author of several other books, including THE CLINTON TAPES: Wrestling History with the President, Branch began his career as a magazine journalist for The Washington Monthly, Harper’s, and Esquire. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

Book signing to follow lecture.