Remembering Fred Shuttlesworth

In honor of the late Fred Shuttlesworth, civil rights leader, I'm reposting this article I wrote about him in 2005.


CIVIL RIGHTS LEADER SPEAKS ON MLK DAY

BY ANDREW BOSSONE

MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

If it were not for the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, the civil rights movement might not have erupted in Birmingham.

From 1958 to 1963, Shuttlesworth implored Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to bring their work to Birmingham. Shuttlesworth believed if African-Americans could overcome segregation in Birmingham, they could end segregation throughout the South.

Now, more than 40 years after Shuttlesworth persuaded King to join him, Shuttlesworth will honor the late civil rights leader this Sunday at 11:15 a.m. at St. Sabina Catholic Church, 1210 W. 78th Place.

Shuttlesworth, a Baptist minister in Cincinnati, will preside over the service with the Rev. Michael Pfleger, a day before Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

"Martin was for the fight for justice and brotherhood in this country," said Shuttlesworth. "I thought very much of him because he was honest and sincere."

Shuttlesworth and King fought for the common goal to end segregation, but their approaches were sometimes different. Shuttlesworth was known more for his aggressive and antagonistic methods, whereas King for his cautious and deliberate style.

"We were different people," said Shuttlesworth. "I was more of an actionist than him. That's not to say he tolerated it more than I do. He used to say, 'If someone stands on your foot long enough, eventually you want them to get off.' He was just more patient than I was."

To this day, King is the face of civil rights movement. But it was Shuttlesworth who did much of the work in Birmingham.

"Dr. King could speak in more elevated educated ways," said Andrew Manis, Shuttlesworth’s biographer. "But Shuttlesworth was more of a grass roots voice for working class blacks in America, particularly in Alabama."

In the biography, "A Fire you Can’t Put Out: The Civil Rights Life of Birmingham’s Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth," Manis describes Shuttlesworth as the most unsung hero of the civil rights movement.

"No one surpassed him in courageous efforts to break down Jim Crow in Birmingham," said Manis. "No one put himself in a position to be killed more often than Fred Shuttlesworth."

In September 1957, Shuttlesworth said he tried to enroll his two daughters at the all-white Phillips High School. A week before registering them, a young black man was accosted by klansmen. They castrated him, and sent with him the message that this would happen to those who tried to integrate schools. Shuttlesworth proceeded to register his daughters in spite of this.

On the day he brought his daughters to the school, which was only two blocks away from the Birmingham courthouse, he was met by a group of about 15 men who beat him with baseball bats and bicycle chains.

"Nobody except me and Jesus thought I would live through that," Shuttlesworth said.

Soon after he recovered, he said a policeman escorted him to an event. Although the officer was a full head taller than the preacher, Shuttlesworth recalls him trembling the whole way. When they reached their destination, the police officer removed his hat and said, "Reverend, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I didn't know it would go this far. I know these people. I didn't know they would go this far."

Shuttlesworth did not say a word.

"Reverend, I'll tell you what I would do," continued the officer. "I'd get outta town as quick as I could."

"Officer, you are not me," Shuttlesworth responded. "Tell your clan, if God saved me through all this, I am here for the duration. And the war is just beginning."

Shuttlesworth endured more confrontations with Eugene"Bull" Connor, Birmingham's Public Safety Commissioner, and segregationists than anyone else in Birmingham. On Christmas Day in 1956 his house exploded from dynamite. His church burned to the ground twice.

When Shuttlesworth went to court after being arrested during a protest, the judge told him there was not enough room in the crowded jails for him. Shuttlesworth knew that was a sign they were winning.

"Your honor," Shuttlesworth said. "We have made progress."

Although the King and Shuttlesworth were not close friends, they respected each other as colleagues, and at times referred to the other with great affection. King once called Shuttlesworth the most courageous civil rights fighter in the South.

They stood side by side in that fight in Alabama, and for this reason Shuttlesworth will be coming to St. Sabina on the South Side this weekend.

"He's a living testimony of the movement," said Father Pfleger, pastor of St. Sabina. "We miss great opportunities with people from the movement who are still alive."

In past celebrations of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, St. Sabina has brought in other notable members of the civil rights movement, including Ralph Abernathy, Rosa Parks, Betty Shabazz and Dr. Martin Luther King, Sr.

Pfleger said he hopes Shuttlesworth will implore the congregation to continue the fight started in Birmingham almost 50 years ago, and remains today.

Pfleger will not be disappointed.

"My hope is that the younger people will come to not just celebrate," said Shuttlesworth. "But will make it a consecration to the celebrations of King's life."

Official declaration of Occupy Wall Street

Official Statement from Occupy Wall Street - this statement was voted on and approved by the general assembly of protesters at Liberty Square: Declaration of the Occupation of New York City

As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.

They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.

They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.

They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.

They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless nonhuman animals, and actively hide these practices.

They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.

They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.

They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.

They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.

They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.

They have sold our privacy as a commodity.

They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.

They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.

They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.

They have donated large sums of money to politicians supposed to be regulating them.

They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.

They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantive profit.

They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.

They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.

They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.

They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.

They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.

They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.*

To the people of the world,

We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.

Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.

To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.

Join us and make your voices heard!

*These grievances are not all-inclusive.