John Archibald
Shelby County native John Archibald (1963- ) is a newspaper journalist, political commentator, writer, and podcaster with a long career at The Birmingham News and Al.com. Well known for his commentary on corruption in Alabama politics, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 2018 and the Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting in 2023. He was awarded the Nieman Foundation Fellowship at Harvard University in 2020 and was the inaugural Writer-in-Residence at Boston University’s College of Communication in April 2023. He was also elected to the Pulitzer Prize Board in 2024. In addition to his work with the Alabama Media Group, he advances his critiques of southern conservative politics in podcasts released by Reckon, an award-winning national news organization.
Archibald was born in Alabaster, Shelby County, on April 5, 1963, to Robert L. Archibald Jr., a Methodist minister, and Mary Holland; he is one of four siblings. He grew up in Birmingham, Jefferson County, during the 1960s, at the height of the civil rights movement. He graduated in 1981 from Birmingham’s Banks High School and in 1986 from the University of Alabama, earning a degree in journalism. While attending college, he wrote for the student newspaper, The Crimson White. In 1986, he married Alecia Sherard; the couple would have three children. That same year, he joined The Birmingham News, first as a reporter and then, beginning in 2004, as a columnist.
In 2018, Archibald won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary. The ten award-winning articles in the series provided extensive commentary on the scandal involving Alabama governor Robert Bentley, the 2017 Senate race between Republican Roy Moore and Democrat Doug Jones, the treatment of Brandi Burgess (the self-identified bi-sexual daughter of Birmingham radio host Rick Burgess of The Rick and Bubba Show), and the public reactions to the #MeToo Movement. The articles gained national attention for critiquing corrupt politicians and championing women’s rights during the rise of the #MeToo Movement. These columns all appeared in print in Alabama Media Group outlets The Birmingham News, The Huntsville Times, and The Mobile Press-Register, and online at Al.com.
In 2020, Archibald was awarded the Nieman Foundation Fellowship at Harvard University. While at Harvard, he began developing the play Pink Clouds (2020), which is inspired by his experiences covering capital punishment, abortion, and chemical endangerment, a controversial Alabama law used to prosecute women for alleged drug exposure. The play’s main character, the reporter Mack, grapples with life, death, and the complexity of living in a state where most politicians and voters identify as “pro-life” but where executions are common and quality of life receives little attention. Pink Clouds premiered in September 2022 during the Human Rights New Works Festival, an annual festival hosted by Birmingham’s Red Mountain Theater.
In his 2021 memoir, Shaking the Gates of Hell, Archibald examines the role of Birmingham's White Methodist ministers during the civil rights era through the lens of his father, Rev. Robert L. Archibald Jr. The memoir serves both as a personal reckoning with his father and a critique of the Methodist Church’s inaction during a time of violence and social change. Archibald explains that he was mostly unaware of the struggle and violence going on around him despite his father’s knowledge of local events like the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing, the Children’s Crusade, and Martin Luther King Jr.’s penning of “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” Like other Methodist ministers, Rev. Archibald remained relatively silent amidst civil rights tragedies. Throughout the narrative, Archibald acknowledges his father’s silence as a means of protecting his family and career while also clearly recognizing his culpability. He laments that his father and other ministers did not confront injustice.
Archibald was awarded his second Pulitzer Prize in 2023 for Local Reporting on a significant issue with a community connection. He shared this Pulitzer with his investigative team: Ramsey Archibald (his son), Ashley Remkus, and Challen Stephens of AL.com. Their reporting exposed aggressive policing in Brookside, Jefferson County, where police officers used ticketing to raise city revenue. Brookside officers, for instance, targeted minority residents and made excessive stops using unmarked cars, thereby increasing arrests and fines to fund their department. The investigation led to the police chief’s resignation, four new state laws aimed at preventing policing for profit, the dismissal of many local cases, and the return of wrongfully seized property.
Archibald has also co-hosted two investigative podcasts: Unjustifiable (2020) and American Shrapnel (2025). Unjustifiable, produced by Reckon Radio and AL.com, won the 2021 Edward R. Murrow Award for the best podcast by a small digital news organization. This six-part series, co-hosted by Roy S. Johnson, investigates the 1979 police killing of Bonita Carter, a 20-year-old Black woman. Carter’s death sparked reforms in the Birmingham Police Department and helped lead to the election of Birmingham’s first Black mayor, Richard Arrington. The 2025 podcast American Shrapnel explores the complicated search for Eric Robert Rudolph after the 1996 Atlanta Centennial Olympic Park bombing and the 1998 Birmingham abortion clinic bombing.
Archibald and his wife live in the Birmingham area, where he continues to write political commentary on the South across multiple platforms and genres.
Works by John Archibald
Pink Clouds (2020)
Unjustifiable (2020) (podcast)
Shaking the Gates of Hell: A Search for Family and Truth in the Wake of the Civil Rights Revolution (2021)
