African Americans - General & Miscellaneous, United States History - African American History, African American History, African American Biography & Memoir, Labor Leaders, Activists, & Social Reformers, United States History - 20th Century - 1945 to 2000

Bearing the cross

Name: Bearing the cross
Author: David J. Garrow
ISBN: 9780688166328

by David J. Garrow

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Overview

Winner of the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for Biography and the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, this is the most comprehensive book ever written about the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Based on more than 700 interviews with all of King's surviving associates, as well as with those who opposed him, and enhanced by the author's access to King's personal papers and tens of thousands of pages of FBI documents, this is a towering portrait of a man's metamorphosis into a legend. Garrow traces King's transformation from a young, earnest pastor of a modest church into the foremost spokesperson of the black freedom struggle. The book's central unifying theme is King's growing awareness of the symbolic meaning of the cross as his sense of mission deepened, matured, and was transmuted by sometimes-reluctant degrees into acceptance of a life and a role that would end by demanding the ultimate in self-sacrifice. This is a powerful portrait of a man at the epicenter of one of the most dramatic periods in our history.

"Likely to remain for a long time the most informative life of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the most thorough study of thecivil rights movement." (— C. Vann Woodward, The New York Times Review of Books)

A biography on Martin Luther King Jr that reveals and analyses aspects of the man's public work and private life.

About the Author, David J. Garrow

David J. Garrow is Presidential Distinguished Professor at Emory University School of Law. He has taught at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Duke University, and the College of William and Mary. He served as a senior advisor for Eyes on the Prize, the award-winning PBS-TV documentary history of the American civil rights movement. He lives in Atlanta, Georgia.

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Editorials

From Barnes & Noble

Winner of the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for biography, Bearing the Cross is a seminal examination of an iconic American. Garrow delves deep into King's personal and private lives to reveal a complex man called to perform the Lord's work. Throughout, King's humanity and frailties serve to underscore how monumental was his transcending vision.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Garrow (Protest at Selma), who teaches political science at the City College of New York, draws on 700 interviews and King's personal papers to depict the man's strength and vision as well as his failings and fears. PW noted that the book stresses King's ``philosophy of nonviolent resistance, coupled with love and tempered by realism.'' (January)