Civil Rights historian and the first Black Mayor of Derry bring the Selma–Derry connection to the forefront

In Good Trouble, Forest Issac Jones draws on firsthand interviews to show how the Black freedom movement in the U.S. shaped Northern Ireland’s civil rights fight. From Selma to the Bogside, he follows the people who marched, organized and resisted—across borders and generations.

Now, in conversation with Lilian Seenoi Barr—Derry’s first Black mayor and a leading voice for justice—Jones explores what solidarity looked like then, and what it demands now.

In Good Trouble: The Selma, Alabama and Derry, Northern Ireland Connection 1963–1972, Jones uncovers the influence of the Selma to Montgomery marches on the 1969 Belfast to Derry march through intimate oral histories. He speaks with movement figures on both sides of the Atlantic—from Dr. Sheyann Webb-Christburg and Richard Smiley in Alabama, to Billy McVeigh and Eamonn McCann in Derry. The result is a rare, dual-perspective account of two liberation movements in dialogue.