Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    To the Mountaintop: Martin Luther King Jr.'s Mission to Save America: 1955-1968
    Unavailable
    To the Mountaintop: Martin Luther King Jr.'s Mission to Save America: 1955-1968
    Unavailable
    To the Mountaintop: Martin Luther King Jr.'s Mission to Save America: 1955-1968
    Ebook767 pages10 hours

    To the Mountaintop: Martin Luther King Jr.'s Mission to Save America: 1955-1968

    By Stewart Burns

    4.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    More than a biography, To the Mountaintop is the history of a turbulent epoch that changed the course of American and world history. Moral warrior and nonviolent apostle; man of God rocked by fury, fear, and guilt; rational thinker driven by emotional and spiritual truth -- Martin Luther King Jr. struggled to reconcile these divisions in his soul. Here is an intimate narrative of his intellectual and spiritual journey from cautious liberal, to reluctant radical, to righteous revolutionary. Stewart Burns draws not only on King's speeches, letters, writings, and well-reported strategizing and activities, but also on previously underutilized oral histories of key meetings and events, which present a dramatic account of King and the movement in the crucial years from 1955 to 1968.

    In a striking departure from earlier books on Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement, Burns focuses on King's biblical faith and spiritual vision as fundamental to his political leadership and shows how these threads wove together a "single garment of destiny," making King the most important social prophet of the twentieth century. King is not portrayed as a lone exalted hero, butas the heart of a fabric of principled leadershipthat stretched from his closest colleagues to the movement's foot soldiers on the streets. This book stresses his shaping by other leaders -- heroic figures such as Bayard Rustin, Ella Baker, James Bevel, Bob Moses, and Marian Wright Edelman -- and his conflicted relationships with John and Robert Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson.

    To the Mountaintop is uniquely powerful in presenting actual conversations between King and others, and in showing how King's public words often revealed his private torment. Burns provides a uniquely realist portrait of King and the civil rights movement by revealing the vital but neglected religious character of the story, and by demonstrating how King profoundly experienced the movement as a sacred mission following a path of liberation and sacrifice pioneered by Moses and Jesus.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateMar 17, 2009
    ISBN9780061754326
    Unavailable
    To the Mountaintop: Martin Luther King Jr.'s Mission to Save America: 1955-1968
    Author

    Stewart Burns

    Stewart Burns, historian and resident fellow at Stanford University and former editor of the Martin Luther King Jr. Papers, is coeditor of Birth of a New Age, 1955-1956, volume 3 of The Papers of Martin Luther King Jr., and author of Social Movements of the 1960s: Searching for Democracy.

    Related to To the Mountaintop

    Related ebooks

    United States History For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The Death of Tyler Clementi

      Sep 1, 2021

      The Death of Tyler Clementi
      7 min read

    • Article

      How an Old WHITE GUY Got Woke

      May 25, 2019

      How an Old WHITE GUY Got Woke
      13 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Ismail Muhammad

      Dec 22, 2018

      More than anything else that I read this year, those two books made me appreciate the unlikeliness of my black life here in this golden state. The post A Year in Reading: Ismail Muhammad appeared first on The Millions.

      7 min read

    • Article

      Body and Blood

      Sep 25, 2018

      Body and Blood
      13 min read

    • Article

      The Art of Nonfiction No. 11

      Dec 7, 2021

      The Art of Nonfiction No. 11
      26 min read

    • Article

      It’s Not Rocket Science

      Jul 24, 2018

      Joe Jackson might not seem your typical Western historian. His father was a rocket scientist during the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs, and Jackson majored in English and psychology in college, then worked briefly as a suicide councilor before m

      3 min read

    • Article

      Nora And The Jews

      Apr 20, 2023

      Nora Ephron was Jewish but glamorous. Jewish and glamorous. Glamorous, in part, because she was Jewish. The post Nora and the Jews appeared first on The Millions.

      18 min read

    • Article

      Tuesday New Release Day: Starring Ford, Arnett, St. Aubyn, and More

      Jun 1, 2021

      This week we're looking at new titles from Ashley C. Ford, Kristin Arnett, and Edward St. Aubyn. The post Tuesday New Release Day: Starring Ford, Arnett, St. Aubyn, and More appeared first on The Millions.

      7 min read

    • Article

      Black & Proud Love

      Mar 12, 2019

      Black & Proud Love
      3 min read

    • Article

      In 'Afterland,' A World (Mostly) Without Men: Questions For Lauren Beukes

      Aug 5, 2020

      Lauren Beukes' new novel is set in a near future where a virus has killed off most of the men on Earth, and one woman is racing to free her young, immune son from the government and get him to safety.

      6 min read

    • Article

      Enduring Message Of Nonviolence Reaches New Audiences

      Feb 29, 2024

      Clarence B. Jones is preaching nonviolence.  At 93, this civil rights pioneer, who helped the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. write his “I Have a Dream” speech, is still combating hate. But these days, instead of leading protest meetings, Mr. Jones is re

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Man Who Became Uncle Tom

      Sep 8, 2023

      The Man Who Became Uncle Tom
      22 min read

    • Article

      Readers Write: Finding Progress Despite Violent Histories

      Aug 19, 2023

      How brave and honest of the Monitor to uncover the deeper reasons for American violence and mistaken thinking in the June 5 cover story, “Exposing the roots of violence.” I spent my early childhood in Wilmington, Delaware, where my family housed and

      2 min read

    • Article

      Tuesday New Release Day: Starring So, Kleeman, Awad, and More

      Aug 3, 2021

      Here’s a quick look at some notable books—new titles from the late Anthony Veasna So, Alexandra Kleeman, Mona Awad, and more—that are publishing this week. The post Tuesday New Release Day: Starring So, Kleeman, Awad, and More appeared first on The M

      10 min read

    • Article

      Holy Week: Kingdom

      Mar 14, 2023

      Holy Week: Kingdom
      20 min read

    • Article

      Words As medicine

      Feb 29, 2020

      Words As medicine
      6 min read

    Reviews for To the Mountaintop

    4.5/5

    5 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words