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Fred Shuttlesworth
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Fred Shuttlesworth
Freddie Lee Shuttlesworth (born Freddie Lee Robinson, March 18, 1922 – October 5, 2011) was an American Baptist minister and civil rights activist who led fights against segregation and other forms of racism, during the civil rights movement. He often worked with Martin Luther King Jr., although they did not always agree on tactics and approaches.
In 1957, along with Martin Luther King Jr., Shuttlesworth was a co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In 1961, he took up a pastorate in Cincinnati, Ohio to work against racism, and on behalf of homeless people, but remained active in Birmingham. In 1963, he initiated and was instrumental in the Birmingham Campaign. He returned from Cincinnati to Birmingham after his retirement in 2007.
The Birmingham–Shuttlesworth International Airport was named in his honor in 2008, and the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute Fred L. Shuttlesworth Human Rights Award is bestowed annually in his name.
Born to an African American family in Mount Meigs, Alabama on March 18, 1922, Shuttlesworth attended Rosedale High School from which he graduated as the valedictorian. He studied at Selma University, earning his B.A. in 1951, and later earned his B.S. from Alabama State University.[citation needed]
Shuttlesworth got his license as a country preacher when he was changing from a Methodist to a Baptist Christian. He became pastor of the Bethel Baptist Church in Birmingham in 1953 and was Membership Chairman of the Alabama state chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1956, when the State of Alabama formally outlawed it from operating within the state.[citation needed]
In May 1956, Shuttlesworth and Ed Gardner established the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights to take up the work formerly done by the NAACP. The ACMHR raised almost all of its funds from local sources at mass meetings. It used both litigation and direct action to pursue its goals. When the authorities ignored the ACMHR's demand that the City hire black police officers, the organization sued. Similarly, when the United States Supreme Court ruled in December 1956 that bus segregation in Montgomery, Alabama, was unconstitutional, Shuttlesworth announced that the ACMHR would challenge segregation laws in Birmingham on December 26, 1956.[citation needed]
On December 25, 1956, an attempt was made on Shuttlesworth's life by placing sixteen sticks of dynamite under his bedroom window. He escaped unhurt although his house was heavily damaged. A police officer, who also belonged to the Ku Klux Klan, told Shuttlesworth as he came out of his home, "If I were you I'd get out of town as quick as I could". Shuttlesworth told him to tell the Klan that he was not leaving and "I wasn't raised to run."[citation needed]
When Shuttlesworth and his wife Ruby attempted to enroll their children in John Herbert Phillips High School, a previously all-white public school in Birmingham in the summer of 1957, a mob of Klansmen attacked them, with the police nowhere to be seen. The mob beat Shuttlesworth with "chains, baseball bats and brass knuckles, and his wife was stabbed in the hips". His assailants included Bobby Frank Cherry, who six years later was involved in the 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing. Shuttlesworth drove himself and his wife to the hospital, where he told his children to "always forgive".[citation needed]
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Fred Shuttlesworth
Freddie Lee Shuttlesworth (born Freddie Lee Robinson, March 18, 1922 – October 5, 2011) was an American Baptist minister and civil rights activist who led fights against segregation and other forms of racism, during the civil rights movement. He often worked with Martin Luther King Jr., although they did not always agree on tactics and approaches.
In 1957, along with Martin Luther King Jr., Shuttlesworth was a co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In 1961, he took up a pastorate in Cincinnati, Ohio to work against racism, and on behalf of homeless people, but remained active in Birmingham. In 1963, he initiated and was instrumental in the Birmingham Campaign. He returned from Cincinnati to Birmingham after his retirement in 2007.
The Birmingham–Shuttlesworth International Airport was named in his honor in 2008, and the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute Fred L. Shuttlesworth Human Rights Award is bestowed annually in his name.
Born to an African American family in Mount Meigs, Alabama on March 18, 1922, Shuttlesworth attended Rosedale High School from which he graduated as the valedictorian. He studied at Selma University, earning his B.A. in 1951, and later earned his B.S. from Alabama State University.[citation needed]
Shuttlesworth got his license as a country preacher when he was changing from a Methodist to a Baptist Christian. He became pastor of the Bethel Baptist Church in Birmingham in 1953 and was Membership Chairman of the Alabama state chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1956, when the State of Alabama formally outlawed it from operating within the state.[citation needed]
In May 1956, Shuttlesworth and Ed Gardner established the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights to take up the work formerly done by the NAACP. The ACMHR raised almost all of its funds from local sources at mass meetings. It used both litigation and direct action to pursue its goals. When the authorities ignored the ACMHR's demand that the City hire black police officers, the organization sued. Similarly, when the United States Supreme Court ruled in December 1956 that bus segregation in Montgomery, Alabama, was unconstitutional, Shuttlesworth announced that the ACMHR would challenge segregation laws in Birmingham on December 26, 1956.[citation needed]
On December 25, 1956, an attempt was made on Shuttlesworth's life by placing sixteen sticks of dynamite under his bedroom window. He escaped unhurt although his house was heavily damaged. A police officer, who also belonged to the Ku Klux Klan, told Shuttlesworth as he came out of his home, "If I were you I'd get out of town as quick as I could". Shuttlesworth told him to tell the Klan that he was not leaving and "I wasn't raised to run."[citation needed]
When Shuttlesworth and his wife Ruby attempted to enroll their children in John Herbert Phillips High School, a previously all-white public school in Birmingham in the summer of 1957, a mob of Klansmen attacked them, with the police nowhere to be seen. The mob beat Shuttlesworth with "chains, baseball bats and brass knuckles, and his wife was stabbed in the hips". His assailants included Bobby Frank Cherry, who six years later was involved in the 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing. Shuttlesworth drove himself and his wife to the hospital, where he told his children to "always forgive".[citation needed]
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