On today’s show, host Ali Muldrow is in conversation with historian Forest Isaac Jones about the strong connections between the Black Civil Rights Movement in the US and the Catholic Civil Rights Movement in Northern Ireland. His new book, Good Trouble: The Selma, Alabama and Derry, Northern Ireland Connection 1963-1972 traces the influence of the Montgomery to Selma march of 1965 on the Belfast to Derry march of 1969.

Folks in the US might be surprised to learn how profoundly the Civil Rights Movement shaped the fight for liberation in Northern Ireland. Both movements were focused on voting rights and both groups faced state-sanctioned violence, says Jones. The mainstream media in both countries also struggled to frame the narrative about Civil Rights and often painted these movements as extremist, despite their commitment to nonviolence.

They also talk about the role of religion in both movements, from the Black Baptist Church and Nation of Islam in the US and the Catholic church in Northern Ireland. Figures like Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lewis are well known in the US, and Jones shares stories of their counterparts–Eamonn McCann and Bernadette Devlin–in Northern Ireland.

There’s a deep irony in that while the marchers in Northern Ireland took inspiration and tactics from the US Civil Rights Movement, the police did as well. Jones shares examples of the Duke Street Demonstration in Northern Ireland in 1968 where police used water cannons. Meanwhile, marchers were singing “We Shall Overcome.”

Forest Isaac Jones is an award-winning author of non-fiction and essays, specializing in the study of Irish History, the US Civil Rights Movement and Northern Ireland. His first nonfiction book, Good Trouble: The Selma, Alabama and Derry, Northern Ireland Connection 1963-1972 was released last year and is required reading for a course on Ireland at Macalester College in Minnesota.

Featured image of the cover of Good Trouble: The Selma, Alabama and Derry, Northern Ireland Connection 1963-1972.

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