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A People's History of the 1963 March on Washington
by Charles Euchner
History books record August 28, 1963, as the day when over a quarter-million people rallied in Washington, in the first-ever nationally televised demonstration—when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his iconic 'I Have a Dream' oration. But as Charles Euchner reveals in Nobody Turn Me Around, the march’s significance is more surprising and complex than standard treatments allow.
With rich oral histories from over one hundred participants—high-profile civil rights leaders but also ordinary Americans, like the marcher who won a train ticket after enduring a brutal jailing—Euchner offers a vivid tale of that day. Nobody Turn Me Around shows the movement at its apex, on the verge of achieving historic reform—and decline. The book shows James Farmer watching the march from his jail cell; Malcolm X’s secret vow to help the march, while mocking it from the sidelines; how King really wrote his landmark address; the controversy over John Lewis’s damning speech; and devastating undercurrents involving JFK and J. Edgar Hoover. Each scene comes alive in this richly intimate account of the peak of the civil rights era.
"Starred Review. [A] wholly satisfying, comprehensive view of the March. A sharp, riveting depiction of what Martin Luther King called 'the greatest demonstration for freedom in the nation's history'." - Kirkus Reviews
"With deft brushstrokes, Euchner not only captures the myriad dimensions of the march itself but places it in its larger historical context, including the escalating war in Vietnam." - Publishers Weekly
"Those who enjoy popular history will find much to like here, and students will appreciate the original research." - Library Journal
This information about Nobody Turn Me Around was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Charles Euchner is the author or editor of eight books. He teaches writing at Yale University and was the founding executive director of the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston at Harvard University. He lives in Hamden, Connecticut.
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