I’ve always had a soft spot for what you might call “year books”—not the high school kind, but those immersive histories that zoom in on a single calendar year to show how change unfolds in real time. Some years lend themselves especially well to this treatment, and 1963 is one of them: the year of Birmingham and the March on Washington, of Dr. King’s “Dream” and JFK’s assassination. In his new book, Freedom Season: How 1963 Transformed America’s Civil Rights Revolution, historian Peniel Joseph captures the urgency and upheaval of that pivotal year, tracing how a movement long in the making finally broke through to reshape American law and society.
We spoke about how the momentum of 1963 led to the landmark Civil Rights Act—and how, disturbingly, the very gains of that era are now under renewed threat. In a moment when civil rights laws are being weakened or cynically repurposed, Joseph’s book offers both a reminder of what was achieved and a call to reckon with how much remains unfinished. It’s a timely and necessary look back at a year that still echoes loudly today.
If you have any suggestions for topics or guests please send them my way at thinkbackpod@substack.com. If you’d like to support this podcast, you can do so for just $6/month by clicking the button below. Thank you for listening.
Music by Akiko Sasaki (“The Union,” by Louis Moreau Gottschalk) and Zachary Solomon
Share this post