Forest Issac Jones is the author of the new book Good Trouble: The Selma, Alabama, and Derry, Northern Ireland, Connection 1963-1972. He lives in Salem, Virginia.
Q: What inspired you to write Good Trouble?
A: I became friends with author Julieann Campbell during Covid in 2020. Julieann wrote a fantastic historical nonfiction book called On Bloody Sunday. This book detailed the January 1972 killings of unarmed Catholic protestors in Derry by the British Army. Julieann’s uncle was one of the first people killed in it.
I met her online on Twitter/X and we had discussions about her book. She told me to look her up if I ever made it to Derry in my travels. I was able to travel there in 2021-22 and we met up and became fast friends.
During my time there, I was struck by how many people came up to me and said, “We took so much from your people’s movement.” I’m a history major and didn’t understand what they were talking about. They told me that the Catholic civil rights movement took so much from the Black civil rights movement in the USA.
This was the first time I had ever heard this. I talked to Julieann about it and she told me that the Catholics were fighting for the same things—voting rights, housing, and jobs. She told me that I had to write a book about it. I think back and say to myself that none of this would have ever happened if I hadn’t met her and visited Derry.
Q: The author Kristen Green said of the book, “Woven through with firsthand accounts from Jones's family, this personal telling of the two countries’ common struggles is moving and enlightening.” What do you think of that description?
A: I love Kristen’s description of the book. As a former history teacher, I’m a strong believer in primary sources or first-hand accounts. I knew that I needed to talk to people who actually had boots on the ground both here in the USA and in Northern Ireland.
My parents’ observations were critical because my mother was at the March on Washington in 1963 and they both marched as college students at Livingstone College in the early ‘60s to integrate lunch counters and the movie theater in Salisbury, North Carolina.
I also was lucky enough to talk to people who were there on Bloody Sunday and who marched from Selma to Montgomery.
For Northern Ireland, hearing that marchers were attacked with water cannons on Duke Street in 1969 and ambushed on Burntollet Bridge during the march from Belfast to Derry showed me how connected the struggles were for both the Catholics in Northern Ireland and the Black population here in the States.
Q: Can you say more about how you researched the book? Did you learn anything that especially surprised you?
A: I went to the National Archives in Washington, D.C., and the Linen Hall Library in Belfast, Northern Ireland, to spend time looking through documents, etc. I also conducted interviews in person with people here in the States and in Derry, Northern Ireland. I conducted numerous phone interviews as well. All of this took close to two years to complete.
The thing that surprised me while doing the research was the fact no Black American that I interviewed knew anything about the connection and the impact of what they did on the Catholic civil rights movement in Northern Ireland. This makes sense because I didn’t know and I was a History major.
This revelation for the ones I interviewed here turned into immense pride. They were proud of the fact that what they did was a template for people across the ocean and that they were singing “We Shall Overcome” in Derry and Belfast.
Q: How was the book’s title (a phrase from the late congressman John Lewis) chosen, and what does it signify for you?
A: I personally chose the book’s title. I was apprehensive at first because of the connotation that “The Troubles” has in Northern Ireland. However, I knew the book would end in 1972 and this book would focus fully on the civil rights movement, and not the IRA and the Troubles, which most Northern Ireland books concentrate on.
There is a popular picture of John Lewis and John Hume (famous civil rights leader in Northern Ireland) that was taken on the iconic Peace Bridge in Derry after the Good Friday Peace Agreement. The picture is one of my favorites and I wanted a title that would signify what both movements in the two countries wanted to do—cause Good Trouble to get the rights that they wanted—voting rights, housing, and jobs.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I am currently reaching out to people for information about a historical incident that occurred in North Carolina in the mid-20th century. That’s all I want to say right now. It’s a project that will take up to two years to complete with the research and interviews. I am very excited about it!
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: People have asked me in numerous book talks about what I want readers to take away from the book. It is very simple. There were Protestants that also helped in the Catholic civil rights movement and Whites that were on the march to Montgomery. It shows that we are more powerful working together than we are when we are separated.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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