Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference

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 mission deepened and matured into acceptance of a life that would end by demanding the ultimate sacrifice. This is a powerful portrait of a man at the epicenter of one of the most dramatic periods in our history.