History books record August 28, 1963, as the day when over a quarter-million people rallied in Washington, in the first-ever nationally televised demonstrationβwhen Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his iconic "I Have a Dream" oration. But as Charles Euchner reveals in Nobody Turn Me Around, the marchβs significance is more surprising and complex than standard treatments allow.
With rich oral histories from over one hundred participantsβhigh-profile civil rights leaders but also ordinary Americans, like the marcher who won a train ticket after enduring a brutal jailingβEuchner offers a vivid tale of that day. Nobody Turn Me Around shows the movement at its apex, on the verge of achieving historic reformβand decline. The book shows James Farmer watching the march from his jail cell; Malcolm Xβs secret vow to help the march, while mocking it from the sidelines; how King really wrote his landmark address; the controversy over John Lewisβs 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.
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