Bearing the Cross

Bearing the Cross is the most comprehensive book ever written about the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. As a compelling personal narrative of the man who became the international symbol of the American civil rights movement, it explains the intensely emotional spiritual growth that King experienced as he found his life transformed from that of a brand-new, twenty-six-year-old pastor of a modest church in Montgomery, Alabama, into that of the foremost spokesman of the black freedom struggle.

Based on more than seven hundred inter-views, including personal interviews with all of King's closest surviving associates (including Andrew Young, Jesse Jackson, Ralph Abernathy, Bayard Rustin, and Coretta Scott King), as well as with dozens of King's former colleagues and the southern lawmen who worked against him, Bearing the Cross is a rich and attractive portrait of King and the movement to which he dedicated himself.

This powerful account is enhanced by the author's use of King's personal papers, plus the archives of dozens of other organizations and individuals, and by tens of thou-sands of pages of newly released FBI documents detailing the activities of King and his closest colleagues, including hundreds of wiretapped, transcribed phone conversations between King and his advisors.