OGDEN (AP) -- The new millennium will bring a worldwide struggle for civil rights similar to the 1960s struggle in the United States, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author says.
Historian Taylor Branch also believes children may become the focus of their own civil-rights movement.The author of two books on Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil-rights movement, Branch participated in a symposium entitled "The King Legacy Impact 2000 and Beyond" in Salt Lake City Saturday.
Kitty Stewart, the state's homeless programs manager and coordinator for the Martin Luther King Jr. Human Rights Commission, called Branch's visit "a real coup."
"It's a hard task for those of us who are black in Utah, but I think our task is to educate people to the fact that we are all the same," Stewart said.
Branch said the American civil-rights movement has sparked struggles from the Middle East to Northern Ireland.
"All of these places look to our history as an example," Branch said. "We have a positive role to play for our world. . . . We are the first country that was founded upon an idea rather than an ethnic group."
Branch grew up "as a white Southerner in segregated Atlanta and tried not to pay attention to all of this as best I could, like many others," he said.
But at age 17, Branch was thinking when police aimed fire hoses and turned dogs on 2,000 protesting elementary school students, an event that moved many Americans to fight for blacks' rights.
More than 20 years later, Branch wrote two books: "Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963-1965" and "Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-1963."
"Parting the Waters" earned Branch the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for history. President Clinton awarded him the National Humanities Medal last year.
Branch is producing a miniseries on his books for ABC television.
Branch cites progress in the United States despite lingering discrimination based on race, sex, age and sexual orientation.
"People are opening up to the idea of treating people with respect," he said.