In this intimate history of the civil rights movement and its greatest leader, historian Stewart Burns weaves the political and spiritual dimensions of Martin Luther King Jr.'s life and of the movement into a single whole in which each illuminates the other. Told with a vivid narrative, using unmined sources, To the Mountaintop delves into the crucial last years of King’s life to show how his Christian faith and his sense of himself as a chosen but unworthy messiah became the guiding forces in his life and leadership.
“Thoroughly researched and gracefully written, Stewart Burns’s To the Mountaintop is a brilliant interpretation of Martin Luther King Jr.’s vocation to save America. Anyone who wishes to understand King and the civil rights movement cannot afford to miss this book.” –James H. Cone, Briggs Distinguished Professor of Theology, Union Theological Seminary, author of God of the Oppressed
“For those of us who knew Martin Luther King, and were involved in the Southern movement, but also for all Americans, Stewart Burns brings wonderfully alive both the man himself, and those exciting, inspiring years.” –Howard Zinn, author of A People’s History of the United States