In this episode, we begin our interview with Dr. David J. Garrow, distinguished historian and Pulitzer Prize winning author of Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In this interview, we ask Dr. Garrow about what led him to write the biography of MLK – and what went into his incredible research, including his expertise in FBI documents. We discuss the ecclesiastical context of King and the Civil Rights movement and why the FBI began tracking MLK – as well as some of the more troubling parts of the life of King. We discuss parts of his 2019 article and what people are missing who dismiss some of this evidence. Join us as Dr. Garrow helps us think through how to understand King, in his context. 

Dr. David Garrow’s website 

Some books by Dr. Garrow: 

• Protest at Selma: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 
• The FBI and Martin Luther King, Jr.  
• Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference 
• Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama

Some articles by Dr. Garrow: 

• “The troubling legacy of Martin Luther King” 
• “Who was the real Martin Luther King, Jr.” 
• “King’s Plagiarism: Imitation, Insecurity, and Transformation” 
• “The Intellectual Development of Martin Luther King, Jr.: Influences and Commentaries” 

Other resources: 

King: A Life by Jonathan Eig 

“The Theology of Martin Luther King, Jr.” by James Cone 

Voice of Deliverance: The Language of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Its Sources by Keith Miller 

To See the Promised Land: The Faith Pilgrimage of Martin Luther King, Jr. by Frederick Downing 

Search for the Beloved Community: The Thinking of Martin Luther King, Jr. by Kenneth Smith and Ira Zepp, Jr. 

The Seminarian: Martin Luther King Jr. Comes of Age by Patrick Parr

Origins of the Dream: Hughes's Poetry and King's Rhetoric by W. Jason Miller

A Fire You Can't Put Out: The Civil Rights Life of Birmingham's Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth by Andrew Manis

A Philosophy of Religion by Edgar Sheffield Brightman 

Moral Man and Immoral Society by Reinhold Niebuhr 

Religion and the Rise of Capitalism by R. H. Tawney 

Christianity and the Social Crisis by Walter Rauschenbusch 

God’s Long Summer: Stories of Faith and Civil Rights by Charles Marsh 

The Social Gospel in American Religion by Christopher Evans 

Coming to Terms with John F. Kennedy by Stephen Knott 

Doctrine and Race by Mary Beth Swetnam Mathews 

The Last Segregated Hour: The Memphis Kneel-Ins and the Campaign for Southern Church Desegregation by Stephen R. Haynes 

A Stone of Hope by David Chappell 

Thanks to Dr. Garrow for generously hosting in addition to being interviewed.

Thanks to Jason Wallace (of Ancient Paths TV), Bradley Campbell (of God Loves Mormons) and Casey Cheney (of FBC Provo) for making this interview happen.