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M. J. O’Brien is an independent author who writes about issues related to civil rights and progressive politics. "We Shall Not Be Moved: The Jackson Woolworth's Sit-In and the Movement It Inspired" was published by the University Press of Mississippi in 2013.
O’Brien forged an interest in nonviolent social change during his undergraduate days as a Catholic seminarian at St. Mary’s Seminary and University in Catonsville, Maryland, where he studied the philosophies of Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Dorothy Day and where he marched, along with many of his classmates, with Caesar Chavez from Baltimore to Washington to agitate for better working conditions for migrant farm workers. Graduating in 1973, O’Brien went on to earn a second degree in Communication from the American University.
In 1977, O’Brien met Joan Trumpauer (Mulholland), an unassuming single mother of five. In time, Trumpauer would share with O’Brien her harrowing experiences as a Freedom Rider and civil rights worker in Mississippi in the early 1960s. Her story nudged O’Brien to delve deeper into the history of the Mississippi movement, where he uncovered the story of the Jackson Woolworth’s sit-in, in which Trumpauer was a key figure. O’Brien took it upon himself to find every surviving demonstrator from that now-iconic sit-in. Additionally, he searched for newsmen, police, and even harassing crowd members to form a complete picture of what happened on that historic day and during the dramatic and tragic three weeks that followed.
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