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,[3] presented to him by special guest Edwin C.

[citation needed] in 2015, he received the BIO Award from Biographers International Organization, for his contributions to the art and craft of biography.

[5] 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.