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Black History Profile: Fred Shuttlesworth, “Most Courageous Civil Rights Fighter in the South”

By Charlotte Young
Black College Wire

As the bomb blasted through his house on Christmas Day of 1956, the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth was reassured that he was fighting for the right cause.

The Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth fought civil rights battles in the South, then moved to Cincinnati.

The father of three daughters, Patricia, Ruby and Carolyn, and a son, Fred Jr., Shuttlesworth was an activist and a minister during the civil rights struggles in Birmingham, Ala.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. described him as “the most courageous civil rights fighter in the South.”

Shuttlesworth was born on March 8, 1922, in Mugler, Ala. After graduating from Selma University in 1951 and Alabama State College in 1952, he became pastor of Bethel Baptist Church in Birmingham.

While in Birmingham, he organized sit-ins and bus boycotts and helped encourage African Americans to apply for civil service jobs.

His service and activism earned him much spite and hate from the white community. Shuttlesworth’s house was targeted several times for bombed attacks, and he received countless threats.

He was beaten brutally by a white mob with whips and chains as he attempted to help integrate an all-white public school.

In 1957, Shuttlesworth joined King, the Rev. Ralph David Abernathy and Bayard Rustin to form the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which assisted local organizations that helped blacks in the struggle for equality.

Shuttlesworth was one of the key figures in planning the march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., in 1965. He helped the Congress of Racial Equality organize its Freedom Rides.

In 1966, Shuttlesworth went on to become pastor of Greater New Light Baptist Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. It was through his work there that he became the director of the Shuttlesworth Housing Foundation in 1988. In this position, he aided more than 460 low-income families in gaining home ownership.

Shuttlesworth served as the pastor of Greater New Light until 2006.

Today he continues to speak nationally on civil rights issues. He was a featured speaker at Howard University's Andrew Rankin Memorial Chapel in December.

Charlotte Young, a student at Howard University, writes for the Hilltop. To comment, e-mail [email protected]

Posted Feb. 6, 2007