Civil Rights Pioneer Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth

IN 1957, Shuttlesworth joined with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Ralph David Abernathy, and Bayard Rustin to form the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). He also assisted the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) in organizing the Freedom Rides.

In his 1963 book Why We Cant Wait, King called Shuttlesworth one of the nations the most courageous freedom fighters ... a wiry, energetic and indomitable man.

Obama On Shuttlesworth Death: We Owe Him A Debt Of Gratitude

WASHINGTON President Barack Obama today issued a statement about the passing of the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth.

As one of the founders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Reverend Shuttlesworth dedicated his life to advancing the cause of justice for all Americans. He was a testament to the strength of the human spirit. And today we stand on his shoulders, and the shoulders of all those who marched and sat and lifted their voices to help perfect our union.

I will never forget having the opportunity several years ago to push Reverend Shuttlesworth in his wheelchair across the Edmund Pettus Bridge a symbol of the sacrifices that he and so many others made in the name of equality. America owes Reverend Shuttlesworth a debt of gratitude, and our thoughts and prayers are with his wife, Sephira, and their family, friends and loved ones.

FIVE THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT FRED SHUTTLESWORTH

When legendary civil rights activist Reverend Fred L. Shuttlesworth died today, many Americans had no idea who he was or what hed accomplished in his 89 years on earth. Its an unfortunate reality that people often think Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X were the beginning and end of black activism in the Civil Rights era. In fact, nothing could be more wrong. From the 1950s onward, Shuttlesworth was a major factor in ending Jim Crow laws in the South, and many other oppressive forces throughout the United States. Here are the top five things you should know about him.

ONE

From the start of his career, Shuttlesworth, who was raised poor in Alabama, was fiery and obstinate. After Alabama officially banned the NAACP from operating within the state in 1956, Shuttlesworth, then a pastor, founded the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. The ACMHRs first major order of business was a Birmingham bus sit-in, during which Shuttlesworth and others boarded city buses and sat in the whites only sections. The ACMHR would eventually become charter member organization in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference

TWO He lived nearly nine decades, but many

people tried to kill Shuttlesworth much earlier for his outspokenness. He was the target of two bomb attacks, one on his home and one on his church. And when Shuttlesworth tried to enroll his daughters in an all-white Birmingham school in 1957, an armed mob attacked him, beating him unconscious and stabbing his wife. The couple survived, and when a doctor remarked that Shuttlesworth was lucky to have avoided a concussion, Shuttlesworth said, Doctor, the Lord knew I lived in a hard town, so he gave me a hard head.

THREE Though he worked closely with King,

Shuttlesworths style was decidedly different. Among the youthful elders of the movement, historian Diane McWhorter told The New York Times, he was Martin Luther Kings most effective and insistent foil: blunt where King was soothing, driven where King was leisurely, and most important, confrontational where King was conciliatorymeaning, critically, that he was more upsetting than King in the eyes of the white public. Despite their differences, King once called Shuttlesworth the most courageous civil rights fighter in the South.
Jan. 18, 1965: The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr, center, kicks off a voter registration drive at the Dallas Co. Courthouse in Selma. With King are the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, left; the Rev. Ralph Abernathy, right; and the Rev. Andrew Young, far right. News file/Ed Jones

FOUR Shuttlesworths fiercest enemy in

Birmingham was infamous public safety commissioner Bull Connor. Connors violent responsesattack dogs, fire hoses, billy clubsto Shuttlesworths peaceful demonstrations were integral in changing Americas attitude about Jim Crow. The televised images of Connor directing handlers of police dogs to attack unarmed demonstrators and firefighters using hoses to knock down children had a profound effect on American citizens view of the civil rights struggle, says the Shuttlesworth Foundations website.

FIVE After his actions helped spawn the passage

of the federal Civil Rights Act in 1964, Shuttlesworth continued fighting for justice in realms both racial and economic. In 1988 he founded the Shuttlesworth Housing Foundation to help low-income families own their own homes, and in 2004 he became president of the SCLC. A firebrand to the end, he resigned from the SCLC within months, saying deceit, mistrust and a lack of spiritual discipline and truth have eaten at the core of this once-hallowed organization. Three years ago, the city of Birmingham named its airport after Shuttlesworth. There are still no monuments named after Bull Connor.

On left: Bethel Baptist Church. On right: The bombed Shuttlesworth home.

Shuttlesworth
announced that the ACMHR would challenge segregation laws in Birmingham on December 26, 1956. On December 25, 1956, unknown persons tried to kill Shuttlesworth

by placing sixteen sticks of dynamite under his bedroom window. Shuttlesworth somehow escaped unhurt even though 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

saved to run."

Years before the Freedom Riders boarded buses on May 4, 1961, bus integration laws were being tested in the South. Six days after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Montgomery city buses must integrate, the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth and others challenged the law in Birmingham, Ala., by joining white passengers on a city bus, Dec. 26, 1956. Shuttlesworth boarded the bus hours after a bomb exploded inside his Collegeville, Ala., house. AP Photo/The Birmingham
News, Robt. Adams)

The Rev. Fred

Shuttlesworth, right, is stopped before entering the whites only waiting room at the Bus Terminal March 6, 1957, in Birmingham, Ala. This photo was made one day after the Alabama Public Service Commission ruled that the waiting rooms must remain segregated. Shuttlesworth informed the media of his plans to integrate the waiting rooms and was followed by reporters, photographers and a white mob estimated at more than 100. After being told that he was not wanted inside, Shuttlesworth replied: "It's not up to you to tell me where to go." (AP Photo/The Birmingham News, Robt.
Adams)

As some of the riders were

released from the hospital, they gathered at the Greyhound Terminal in the bus station in Birmingham, Ala., on May 15, 1961, to discuss what to do next. At the urging of injured Rider, James Peck, the group decided to continue on their original route but drivers refused to operate the bus for fear of future violence. The Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth (center) and Freedom Riders discussed plans after drivers refused to carry them any farther. Surrounding Shuttlesworth, clockwise from left: Ed Blankenheim, kneeling, Charles Person, Ike Reynolds, James Peck, Rev. Benjamin Cox, and two unidentified Freedom Riders. AP Photo/The Birmingham News)

On May 18, 1961,

in the middle of the night, Bull Connor takes the Freedom Riders out of jail, drives them to the state line and drops the Freedom Riders off near a train station. The Freedom Riders make their way back to the bus station in Birmingham the next day.
The Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth (pointing), Birmingham integration leader, talks with students in the white waiting room on Wednesday, May 18, 1961 in Birmingham bus station. At right is Mary McCollum, 21, of Snyder, N.Y., a student at Peabody College in Nashville, Tenn., center Lucretia Collins, 21, Fairbanks, Alaska, left two unknown .(AP Photo)

Eugene "Bull" Connor, former Birmingham, Ala., police commissioner and fiery segregationist, seen here during a speech in to the Tuscaloosa County White Citizens Council in Tuscaloosa, Ala., June 8, 1963. Connor was urging the audience to stay away from the University of Alabama campus June 11, when two African Americans are scheduled to enroll. (AP Photo/William A. Smith

Birmingham Alabama Farewell to Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth

Members of the Birmingham Police Department and Birmingham Fire and Rescue escort Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth's casket and family members from Bethel Baptist Church to the new Bethel Baptist Church in the Collegeville neighborhood of Birmingham, Ala., on Saturday, Oct. 22, 2011.

November 14, 1992, the City of Birmingham dedicated an 8 ft. tall bronze statue of Rev. Shuttlesworth at the opening of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.
In January, 2000, Rev. Shuttlesworth received the highest award given to a private citizen, the Presidential Citizens Award, from President Bill Clinton at the White House. In June, 2004, Rev. Shutttlesworth received the second highest award given to a private citizen, the Jefferson Award, in Washington, D.C.