This fresh, insightful account of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom documents the event from initial idea through behind-the-scenes planning to the tensions and triumphs of the day. One critical early question was whether Bayard Rustin would play a key organizing role; there was hesitancy among some Civil Rights leaders because Rustin was gay, but A. Philip Randolph knew Rustin brought essential skills. Sexism among the organizers meant that the insistence of the one woman among them, Anna Arnold Hedgeman, on including women speakers—many women played critical organizing roles in the Movement—went largely unheard. John Lewis’s planned speech criticizing the shortcomings of Civil Rights Act legislation before Congress angered some, and whether Lewis would take the stage was being negotiated almost up to the moment he stepped up to the podium. There was also tension with the Kennedy administration over the March, and myriad logistical questions to answer. And then there was the biggest question of all: Would people come? Throughout, there are also memorable and gratifying stories of women and men who served in less visible roles behind the scenes. End matter of this terrific contribution to literature for youth about the Civil Rights Movement includes additional facts, questions to consider, notes, an index, and more. (Ages 12 and older)

A NATIONAL BOOK AWARD LONGLIST SELECTION ● Hailed as “an essential reeducation on one of the most consequential events in US history” by Ibram X. Kendi, this gripping middle-grade account offers a fresh look at the groundbreaking 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom by spotlighting the protest’s radical roots and the underappreciated role of Black women—includes a wealth of contemporary black-and-white photos throughout.

Six decades ago, on August 28, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his iconic “I Have a Dream” speech during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom—a moment often revered as the culmination of this Black-led protest. But at its core, the March on Washington was not a beautiful dream of future integration; it was a mass outcry for jobs and freedom NOW—not at some undetermined point in the future. It was a revolutionary march with its own controversies and problems, the themes of which still resonate to this day.

Without diminishing the words of Dr. King, More Than a Dream looks at the march through a wider lens, using Black newspaper reports as a primary resource, recognizing the overlooked work of socialist organizers and Black women protesters, and repositioning this momentous day as radical in its roots, methods, demands, and results. From Yohuru Williams and Michael G. Long, the acclaimed authors of Call Him Jack, comes a classic-in-the-making that will transform our modern understanding of this legendary event in the fight for racial justice and civil rights.