Winner of the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for Biography and the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, this is the most comprehensive book ever written about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Based on more than seven hundred interviews, access to King's personal papers, and thousands of FBI documents, Bearing the Cross traces King's metamorphosis from a young, earnest pastor into the foremost spokesperson of the black freedom struggle. At the book's heart is King's growing awareness of the symbolic meaning of the cross as he gradually accepts a life that will demand the ultimate in self-sacrifice. This is a towering portrait of a man at the epicenter of one of the most dramatic periods in our history.