Bearing the Cross

David J. Garrow had unrestricted access to Martin Luther King's personal papers, to thousands of pages of newly released FBI documents, and more than seven hundred interviews with King's closest friends and enemies. Garrow traces King's transformation from the young pastor of a modest church into the foremost spokesperson of the civil rights movement. The book's unifying theme is King's growing awareness of the symbolic meaning of the cross, as his sense of personal mission deepened into an acceptance of a life that would demand the ultimate sacrifice.