Foot Soldiers for Democracy
In 2009, John collaborated with oral historian Horace Huntley to edit the first edition of Foot Soldiers for Democracy, a volume of oral histories with several generations of Black Alabamians who took part in Birmingham’s historic 1963 anti-segregation campaign.
First published by the University of Illinois Press in 2009, the volume has gone on to be a recommended reading by the Library of Congress and was included in the highly selective bibliography of recent and influential works in the third edition of Doing Oral History, a standard guide in the field.
A revised and expanded edition, including new interviews with recent activists from the last twenty years, will be published by Illinois in 2024.
(Book cover copyright University of Illinois Press. Image of Shante Wolfe by John McKerley, copyright Birmingham Civil Rights Institute)
Praise for the First Edition:
"This volume contains a remarkable cross section of firsthand accounts that will interest scholars of the black freedom struggle, especially those attuned to bottom-up views of black history and generational change."
—The Journal of Southern History
"An excellent text for those seeking a work that offers something besides the standard narrative."
—Southern Historian
"This outstanding work is an enormous contribution to the literature on the civil rights movement, and it will provide rich material for debate as well as inspiration for years to come."
—Paul Ortiz, author of Emancipation Betrayed: The Hidden History of Black Organizing and White Violence in Florida from Reconstruction to the Bloody Election of 1920