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Rev Shuttlesworth, Civil Rights Icon, dies at Age 89
Leader endured a 1956 bombing, several protest injuries and countless arrests
bIrMINGHaM, ala. (AP) -- The Rev.
Fred L. Shuttlesworth, who was bombed,
beaten and repeatedly arrested in the fight
for civil rights and hailed by the Rev. Martin
Luther King Jr. for his courage and energy,
has died. He was 89.
Princeton Baptist Medical Center spokes-
woman Jennifer Dodd confirmed he died at
the Birmingham hospital Wednesday morn-
ing.
Shuttlesworth, a former truck driver who
studied religion at night, became pastor of
Bethel Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala.,
in 1953 and soon was an outspoken leader
in the fight for racial equality.
"My
church
was
a
beehive,"
Shuttlesworth once said. "I made the move-
ment. I made the challenge. Birmingham
was the citadel of segregation, and the peo-
ple wanted to march."
In his 1963 book "Why We Can't Wait,"
King called Shuttlesworth "one of the
nation's the most courageous freedom fight-
ers ... a wiry, energetic and indomitable
man."
He survived a 1956 bombing, an assault
during a 1957 demonstration, chest injuries
when Birmingham authorities turned fire
hoses on demonstrators in 1963, and count-
less arrests.
"I went to jail 30 or 40 times, not for fight-
ing or stealing or drugs," Shuttlesworth told
grade school students in 1997. "I went to
jail for a good thing, trying to make a dif-
ference."
He visited frequently and remained active
in the movement in Alabama even after
moving in 1961 to Cincinnati, where he was
a pastor for most of the next 47 years. He
moved back to Birmingham in February
2008 for rehabilitation after a mild stroke.
That summer, the once-segregated city hon-
ored him with a four-day tribute and named
It was Shuttlesworth's
fearlessness that
persuaded King to go
to Birmingham
its airport after him; his statue stands out-
side the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.
And in November 2008, Shuttlesworth
watched from a hospital bed as Sen. Barack
Obama was elected the nation's first
African-American president. The year
before, Obama had pushed Shuttlesworth's
wheelchair across the Edmund Pettus
Bridge in Selma during a commemoration
of the Selma-to-Montgomery voting rights
march.
In the early 1960s, Shuttlesworth had
invited King back to Birmingham.
Televised scenes of police dogs and fire
hoses being turned on black marchers,
outside Alabama. But he
including children, in spring
was a key figure in Spike
1963 helped the rest of the
Lee's 1997 documentary,
nation grasp the depth of
"4 Little Girls," about the
racial animosity in the Deep
September
1963
South.
Birmingham
church
"He marched into the jaws
bombing that killed four
of death every day in
black children.
Birmingham before we got
Shuttlesworth
was
there," Andrew Young, the
born March 18, 1922,
former Atlanta mayor and
near Montgomery and
U.N. ambassador who was
grew up in Birmingham.
an aide to King, said
As a child, he knew he
Wednesday.
The Rev. Fred L.
would either be a minis-
Young said it was
Shuttlesworth
ter or a doctor and by
Shuttlesworth's fearlessness
that persuaded King to take the fight for 1943, he decided to enter the ministry. He
began taking theological courses at night
equality to Birmingham.
"We shouldn't have been strong enough to while working as a truck driver and cement
take on Birmingham ... But God had a plan worker during the day. He was licensed to
that was far better than our plan," Young preach in 1944 and ordained in 1948.
It was 1954 when King, then a pastor in
said. "Fred didn't invite us to come to
Montgomery, came to Birmingham to give
Birmingham. He told us we had to come."
Referring to the city's notoriously racist a speech and asked to stop by Bethel Baptist
safety commissioner, Shuttlesworth would and meet Shuttlesworth. Shuttlesworth
tell followers, "We're telling ol' `Bull' already knew the Rev. Ralph Abernathy,
Connor right here tonight that we're on the who became a key aide to King, as they
march and we're not going to stop marching both attended Alabama State College, later
known as Selma University.
until we get our rights."
Meanwhile, in Montgomery, Rosa Parks
According to a May 1963 New York
Times profile of Shuttlesworth, Connor refused to give up her seat on a city bus in
responded to the word Shuttlesworth had late 1955, prompting the boycott led by
been injured by the spray of fire hoses by King that gave new life to the civil rights
saying: "I'm sorry I missed it. ... I wish movement.
they'd carried him away in a hearse."
While King went on to international fame,
Read the rest of this story online at
www.theskanner.com
Shuttlesworth was relatively little known
September 5, 2011 The Portland and Seattle Skanner Page 9