In 2005 he was awarded both the Purple Heart and Silver Star by California Congressman David Dreier after McEachin participated in a Veterans History Project interview for his office.

Following his military career, McEachin dabbled in civil service, first as a fireman and then a policeman in Hackensack, New Jersey, before he moved to California and became a record producer.

He was regularly cast in professional, "solid citizen" occupational roles, such as a lawyer or a police commander, guesting on numerous series such as Hawaii Five-O, The Rockford Files, Mannix, The Feather and Father Gang, The Eddie Capra Mysteries, Matlock, Jake and the Fatman, Diagnosis Murder, Dragnet, It Takes a Thief, and Adam-12, and in television movies including Welcome Home, Johnny Bristol (1972); The Alpha Caper (1973) and The Dead Don't Die (1975).

McEachin played Mr. Turner, a tax collector for the Internal Revenue Service, and later a character named Solomon Jackson, a co-worker that Archie Bunker tries to recruit for his social club, on the television show All in the Family.

He made his third film with Eastwood in 1983 when he starred as Detective Barnes in the fourth Dirty Harry movie, Sudden Impact.

His first work was a military history of the court-martial of 63 black American soldiers during the First World War, titled Farewell to the Mockingbirds (1995).

He published Pebbles in the Roadway in 2003, a collection of short stories and essays which he describes as "a philosophical view of America and Americans".

In early 2006, McEachin starred with David Huddleston in Reveille, a short film that played to troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The second daughter was personal assistant to, among others, Ice Cube and (the late) Emmy Award-winning director, producer and writer Sam Simon.