Fred Shuttlesworth (b. March 18, 1922) is a civil rights activist who led the fight against segregation and other forms of racism as a minister in Birmingham, Alabama and continues to work against racism and for alleviation of the problems of the homeless in Cincinnati, where he took up a pastorage in 1966.

Born in Mugler, Alabama , he became pastor of the Bethel Baptist Church in Birmingham in 1953 and was Membership Chairman of the Alabama state chapter of the NAACP in 1956, when the State of Alabama formally outlawed it from operating within the state. 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 and used both direct action and litigation 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.

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."

Shuttlesworth led a group that integrated Birmingham's buses the next day, then sued after police arrested twenty-one passengers. His congregation built a new parsonage for him and posted sentries outside his house.

In 1957 Shuttlesworth, along with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rev. Ralph Abernathy from Montgomery, Rev. Joseph Lowery from Mobile, Alabama, Rev. T.J. Jemison from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Rev. C.K. Steele from Tallahassee, Florida, Rev. A.L.Davis from New Orleans, Louisiana and Bayard Rustin founded the Southern Leadership Conference on Transportation and Nonviolent Integration, later renamed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The SCLC adopted a motto to underscore its commitment to nonviolence: "Not one hair of one head of one person should be harmed."

Shuttlesworth embraced that philosophy, even though his own personality was combative, headstrong and sometimes blunt-spoken to the point that he frequently antagonized his colleagues in the movement as well as his opponents. He was not shy in asking King to take a more active role in leading the fight against segregation and warning that history would not look kindly on those who gave "flowery speeches" but did not act on them. He alienated some members of his congregation by devoting as much time as he did to the civil rights movement, at the expense of weddings, funerals and other ordinary church functions.

As a result, Rev. Shuttlesworth moved to Cincinnati, Ohio to take up the pastorage of the Revelation Baptist Church in 1961. Shuttlesworth remained intensely involved in the Birmingham struggle even after moving to Cincinnati.

Shuttlesworth was apparently personally fearless, even though he was aware of the risks he ran. Other committed activists were scared off or mystified by his willingness to accept the risk of death. Shuttlesworth himself vowed to "kill segregation or be killed by it".

That nearly came true in 1957. When Shuttlesworth and his wife attempted to enroll their children in a previously all-white public school in Birmingham, a mob of Klansmen attacked them, with the police nowhere to be seen. His assailants beat him with chains and brass knuckles in the street while someone stabbed his wife. He lost consciousness but was dragged to safety and driven away.

When the doctor attending him expressed surprise that he had not suffered a concussion Shuttlesworth replied "Doctor, the Lord knew I lived in a hard town so he gave me a hard head". His wife, for her part, expressed regret that modesty would not allow to show other church members the scar she had gained.Shuttlesworth survived another attempt on his life a year later, when a church member standing guard saw the bomb and moved it to the street.

Shuttlesworth participated in the sit-ins against segregated lunch counters in 1960 and took part in the organization of the Freedom Rides in 1961. He invited King to come to Birmingham to lead the campaign to desegregate it through mass demonstrations–what Shuttlesworth called "Project C", the "C" standing for "confrontation". While Shuttlesworth was willing to negotiate with political and business leaders for peaceful abandonment of segregation, he believed, with good reason, that they would not take any steps that they were not forced to take and that their promises could not be trusted on until they acted on them.

Shuttlesworth was therefore set on provoking a crisis that would force the authorities and business leaders to recalculate the cost of segregation. He was helped immeasurably in this by Eugene "Bull" Connor, the Commissioner of Public Safety and most powerful public official in Birmingham. While Connor's violent tactics intimidated black citizens of Birmingham, they also created a split between Connor and the business leaders who resented both the damage he was doing to Birmingham's image around the world and his high-handed attitude toward them.

Similarly, while Connor may have benefited politically in the short run from Shuttlesworth's determined provocations, that also fit Shuttleworth's long-term plans. The televised images of Connor directing the use of police dogs attacking unarmed demonstrators and of firefighters using hoses to knock down children had a profound effect on American citizens' view of the civil rights struggle and helped galvanize Congress into passing meaningful civil rights legislation.

He organized the Greater New Light Baptist Church in 1966 and founded the Shuttlesworth Housing Foundation in 1988 to assist families who might otherwise be unable to buy their own homes. Named President of the SCLC in August, 2004, he resigned later in the year, complaining that "deceit, mistrust and a lack of spiritual discipline and truth have eaten at the core of this once-hallowed organization".

Further Readings

• Branch, Taylor, Parting The Waters; America In The King Years 1954-63, ISBN 0671460978

• Manis, Andrew Michael, A Fire You Can't Put Out : the Civil Rights Life of Birmingham's Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, ISBN 0817309683

• Morris, Aldon D., The Origins Of The Civil Rights Movement, Black Communities Organizing For Change, ISBN 0029221307

• Raines, Howell, My Soul Is Rested, The Story Of The Civil Rights Movement In The Deep South, ISBN 0140067531