Description

Easton Press leather edition of David J. Garrow's "Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference," a COLLECTOR'S edition, one of the LIBRARY OF AMERICAN HISTORY series, published in 1989. Bound in red leather, the book has decorative paper end leaves, satin book marker, hubbed spine, acid-free paper, gold gilt on three edges---in near Fine condition. Martin Luther King. Jr., who lived from 1929 – 1968, was a Baptist minister and activist who became the most visible spokesperson and leader in the American civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968. His charismatic leadership made King a "chosen son," and his strategy of coupling Christian love with nonviolent protest won many advocates. King advanced civil rights through nonviolence and civil disobedience, inspired by his Christian beliefs and the nonviolent activism of MAHATMA GANDHI. He was the son of early civil rights activist MLK, Sr. King participated in and led marches for blacks' right to vote, desegregation, and labor rights. He led the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott and later became the first president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). As president of the SCLC, he led the unsuccessful nonviolent 1963 protests in Birmingham, Alabama and helped organize the 1963 March on Washington , where he delivered his famous "I Have a Dream " speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. There were several dramatic stand-offs with segregationist authorities, who sometimes turned violent. FBI Director J. EDGAR HOOVER considered King a radical and ordered FBI agents to investigate him for possible communist ties, recorded his numerous extra martial sexual affairs and reported on them to government officials, and, in 1964, mailed King a threatening anonymous letter , which he interpreted as an attempt to make him commit suicide. On October 14, 1964, King won the NOBEL PEACE PRIZE for combating racial inequality through nonviolent resistance. In 1965, he helped organize the SELMA to MONTGOMERY marches. In his final years, he expanded his focus to include opposition towards poverty, capitalism, and the Vietnam War. In 1968, King was planning a national occupation of Washington, D.C., to be called the Poor People's Campaign, when he was assassinated on April 4 in Memphis, Tennessee. His death was followed by riots in many U.S. cities. Allegations that JAMES EARL RAY, the man convicted of killing King, had been framed or acted in concert with government agents persisted for decades after the shooting. Martin Luther King Jr. Day was established as a holiday in cities and states throughout the United States beginning in 1971; the holiday was enacted at the federal level by legislation signed by President Ronald Reagan in 1986. Hundreds of streets in the U.S. have been renamed in his honor and the MLK, Jr. Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., was dedicated in 2011. Garrow's book includes over 700 interviews with such key leaders as JESSE JACKSON, ANDREW YOUNG, RALPH ABERNATHY, and his wife, CORETTA SCOTT KING; scores of pertinent manuscripts, and printed sources, plus the files of 191 newspapers and periodicals. Garrow was able to gain access to secret FBI and CIA files on King. Garrow wrote that it was King's "child-like faith" that allowed him to "bear the cross." FOLKS, this is a tell-all biography and a must read on the Civil Rights Movement! 800 pages, including Notes, a Bibliography and an Index. I offer combined shipping.