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But it was the Children’s Crusade—for which Shuttlesworth pushed and to which King reluctantly acquiesced—that galvanized national sympathies with its devastating images of young people attacked by fire hoses and police dogs.
While committed to the practice of nonviolence, Shuttlesworth was often combative interpersonally, and he became frustrated with King’s moderating voice.
His motto, “Kill segregation or be killed by it,” captures his escalatory approach. He quipped, “God knew I lived in a hard town so He gave me a hard skull.”
Shuttlesworth became a founding member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957. Shuttlesworth narrowly escaped an attempt on his life on the eve of the event, and the city’s buses were integrated soon after.
The following year, Shuttlesworth became a co-founder—along with Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr., Rev. Ralph Abernathy, Bayard Rustin and others—of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), dedicated to the use of nonviolent methods to combat segregationist laws. We were trying to launch a systematic wholehearted battle against segregation, which would set the pace for the nation.” – Fred Shuttlesworth
About Fred Shuttlesworth:
The Rev.
Fred Shuttlesworth was a pastor and civil rights leader whose conviction and courage consistently led him to the frontlines of the struggle for justice. He urged Dr. King to join him in staging a campaign in Birmingham. Toward the end of his life, recalling the resources he poured into the movement, Shuttlesworth said, “It’s not about what you get out of it, it’s about what you put in.”
Learn More About Fred Shuttlesworth:
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Today’s History Maker Profile was nominated by a current history maker, Jemar Tisby, PhD.
Jemar is the author of the New York Times bestselling book, The Color of Compromise, and his forthcoming book is The Spirit of Justice. However, his ministry was never confined to the parish, because, as he put it, “The world is my pulpit.”
Birmingham in the 1950s was effectively a police state, known as the most segregated city in the country.
Faced with a depleted volunteer force, Shuttlesworth and the SCLC made the controversial–and dangerous–decision for teenagers and schoolchildren to participate in the demonstrations. The slow pace of progress over the next several years eventually led them to invite outside organizers to help them with the struggle. The police aided and abetted the Klan (to which many officers belonged) in burning and bombing the homes of Black families, leading the Klan’s processions through town.
Shuttlesworth’s community organizing began by petitioning city leadership to address environmental racism from the mining industry and to install street lights.
“I said, ‘Well, doctor, the Lord knew I lived in a hard town, so he gave me a hard head,’ ” he said.
It was on display every time he went head-to-head with Birmingham’s racist police commissioner, Eugene “Bull” Connor. He preached his final sermon at 84 and died in 2011 at 89. Three years later, after the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was barred from operating in the state, he formed the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR).
A white mob used baseball bats, bicycle chains, and brass knuckles to attack him, while stabbing Ruby in the hip.
He would also assist the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) in organizing the Freedom Rides in 1961.
“They really thought if they killed me — the Klansmen did — that the movement would stop, because I remember they were saying, ‘This is the leader. Then, in 1956, Alabama’s courts outlawed the NAACP, and Shuttlesworth saw an opportunity: He founded the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights.
He calmly responded, “I wasn’t raised to run.” The protest rides went forward the next day as planned.
Not long after, Shuttlesworth and his wife, Ruby, took their daughter to integrate a high school. He is a professor of history at Simmons College of Kentucky and writes frequently at JemarTisby.Substack.com.
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“He would lead demonstrations, and he would call Bull Connor and say, ‘Bull, I will be on such and such corner; if you want to be part of history, be there,’ ” Huntley said.Shuttlesworth and the ACMHR fought admirably to end segregation in the “Magic City” but made very little headway on their own.
In December 1956, on the heels of the U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down racial segregation on public transportation in Montgomery, Shuttlesworth and the ACMHR announced plans to challenge similar restrictions in Birmingham with a protest. After being struck with brass knuckles and bicycle chains, Shuttlesworth said, the doctor was amazed he wasn’t in worse shape.
It paid off, especially in terms of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which historians attribute directly to the achievements of the Birmingham Campaign.
Growing up in the Deep South, Shuttlesworth once said that he never expected to live to age 40.