Bill Clinton in 1993 Branch served as an assistant editor at
The Washington Monthly from 1970 to 1973; he was Washington editor of ''
Harper's'' from 1973 to 1976; and he was Washington columnist for
Esquire Magazine from 1976 to 1977. He also has written for a variety of other publications, including
The New York Times Magazine,
Sport,
The New Republic, and
Texas Monthly. In 1972, Branch worked for the
Texas campaign of Democratic presidential nominee
George McGovern. Branch shared an apartment in Austin with
Bill Clinton, and the two developed a friendship that continues today. He also worked with
Hillary Rodham, Bill's then-girlfriend and Yale Law School classmate, and later Clinton's wife. Branch's book on former president
Bill Clinton,
The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History With The President, was written from many tape-recorded interviews and conversations between the two, most of which occurred in the White House during Clinton's two terms in office and which were not disclosed publicly until 2007. Branch was a
lecturer in
politics and
history at
Goucher College from 1998 to 2000. Branch has also taught at the
University of Baltimore. Taylor Branch received a five-year
MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (also known as a "genius grant") in 1991 and the
National Humanities Medal in 1999. In 2008, he received the
Dayton Literary Peace Prize's Lifetime Achievement Award, presented to him by special guest
Edwin C. Moses. In 2013, he co-produced
Schooled: The Price of College Sports based on his 2011 book
The Cartel. in 2015, he received the BIO Award from
Biographers International Organization, for his contributions to the art and craft of biography.
Israeli citizenship controversy A group of
Black Hebrew Israelites described as a cult in
The New York Times were systematically denied Israeli citizenship over several decades. In 1981, a group of American civil rights activists led by
Bayard Rustin investigated and concluded that racism was likely not the cause of the Black Hebrews' treatment. In 1992, Branch opined that the Black Hebrew Israelites' denial of citizenship under the Israeli law of return was because of alleged anti-Black sentiment among Israeli Jews. In 1998, Branch was criticized by
Seth Forman, who said Branch's claims seemed to be baseless, particularly in light of Israel's airlift of thousands of black Ethiopian Jews in the early 1990s. ==Family==