John Waldon Egerton was born in Atlanta, Georgia on June 14, 1935. He received a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Kentucky in 1958 and a master of arts in 1960. Between 1958 and 1960 he worked in the public relations department of the University of Kentucky. He served from 1960 to 1965 as the University of South Florida’s Director of Public Information and head of the USF News Bureau. While the Florida Legislature’s Johns Committee investigated administrators, faculty, and students at USF seeking “un-American” activities, Egerton collected and preserved materials documenting the investigation. He donated these materials to the USF library in 1965.
After resigning from the University in 1965, Egerton became a staff writer for Southern Education Report (1965-1969) and for Race Relations Reporter (1969-1971). In 1971 he began a career as a free-lance writer and reporter. He later became contributing editor for the Saturday Review of Education (1972-73), Race Relations Reporter (1973-1974), and Southern Voices (1974-l975). Egerton has written over twenty non-fiction books and more than two hundred articles, primarily about the development and culture of the New South. An authority on Southern foodways, Egerton is a founding member of the Southern Foodways Alliance.
The Florida Legislative Investigation Committee, also known as the Johns Committee, was created in 1956 by the legislature and headed by former governor and state senator Charley Johns. The purpose of the committee was to seek out perceived subversive influences from Florida during the period of 1956-1965. Initially, the Johns Committee attempted to destroy chapters of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Later, during an anti-intellectual crusade, its members attacked Florida's public universities. From 1962-1964, the University of South Florida was part of a large controversy when its students and faculty became the subject of a Johns Committee investigation. The state legislature refused to extend the Committee's mandate in 1965 after a controversial report entitled Homosexuality and Citizenship in Florida was released.
From the guide to the John W. Egerton Papers, 1961-1965
