Dr. J. Michael Butler received his B. A. in History from Spring Hill College, a Jesuit college in his hometown of Mobile, Alabama, where he was named a President’s Scholar and graduated Magna Cum Laude.
He received both his Master’s and Doctorate in History from the University of Mississippi, where he specialized in 20th century Southern Cultural History with an emphasis on the Civil Rights movement. In Oxford, Dr. Butler learned from some of the leading authorities in their historical fields, such as Ted Ownby, Charles Reagan Wilson, William R. Ferris, Charles Eagles, and Winthrop Jordan. After teaching at South Georgia College for eight years, Dr. Butler accepted a position at Flagler College in St. Augustine, Florida in 2008, where he has developed a number of new History courses pertaining to Southern History, African American History, Cultural History, and the Florida Civil Rights Movement.
His work has appeared in many leading peer-reviewed academic publications, such as The Journal of American Studies, The Journal of Southern History, The Florida Historical Quarterly, and Southern Cultures.
His book Beyond Integration: The Black Freedom Struggle in Escambia County, Florida, 1960-1980 won a 2017 Florida Book Award in nonfiction. Dr. Butler has spoken to dozens of teachers and community groups about how the past continues to inform the present in the United States, particularly in the ongoing struggle for racial justice and equality. His latest project is a historical examination of the construction, meaning, and ultimate removal of the St. Augustine Confederate obelisk, a topic Dr. Butler learned much about when he served on the city’s Monument Contextualization Committee in 2019.
