It was late August 1963; Martin Luther King had just delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech and the vast majority of the approximately 3.5 million Americans born in 1946 were starting their senior year in high school.
Over the next nine months the Class of '64, the first high school graduating class of American "Baby Boomers" would experience one of the most consequential periods in American history.
The "I Have a Dream" speech; almost daily shifts of the American government's view of the situation in South Vietnam; the assassination of President Kennedy; the first American appearance of the Beatles; the daily legislative battles that led to the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Bill were just some of the happenings during the Class of '64's senior year.
The Promise of the Class of '64 is a novel that combines actual New York Times newspaper accounts with a fictional "coming of age" tale of a group of New England suburban high school students during a transformative period in their lives and in American history.
If you were born in 1946; if you attended high school in the 1960s; if you enjoy reading American history, this is a book for you.
