Nobody Turn Me Around: A People’s History of the 1963 March on Washington

On August 28, 1963, a quarter of a million people converged on the nation’s capital for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Martin Luther King, whose “I Have a Dream” speech highlighted the occasion, called it “the greatest demonstration for freedom in the nation’s history.” Yale writing instructor Euchner (The Last Nine Innings) presents “a pointillist portrait” of the occasion, drawing material from historical records and taking oral histories from more than 100 participants. Although 1963 was the 100th anniversary of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, racial segregation remained deeply entrenched in the nation’s South, and one specific, practical goal of the march was to desegregate restaurants and hotels. The Kennedy administration mobilized extensive military and police resources, but march leaders, including principal organizer Bayard Rustin and longtime civil rights activist Asa Philip Randolph, were confident (and accurate) in their belief that a peaceful mass demonstration of this scale was not only possible but could change the course of race relations in America. 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. (Aug.)