Bausum's historical nonfiction is routinely lauded by such organizations as the ALA and School Library Journal. In Marching to the Mountaintop, Bausum revisits 1968 Memphis, Tennessee, to examine how the sanitation workers' strike set the scene for one of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s greatest speeches. It would also be the site of his tragic death, an event that dramatically altered the face of the Civil Rights Movement.