One of the founding members of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR) and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), Fred Shuttlesworth brought a militant voice to the struggle for black equality. Born Freddie Lee Robinson on March 18, 1922 in Mount Meigs, Alabama, Fred Shuttlesworth was the first of nine children born to Alberta Robinson Shuttlesworth. When Shuttlesworth was four years old, his mother married William Nathan Shuttlesworth, a coal miner and sharecropper. Shuttlesworth attended Oxmoor Elementary School. He frequently encountered discrimination against African Americans in his community and was frustrated by that unjust treatment. Working part time to supplement his family’s income, Shuttlesworth excelled scholastically at Rosedale High School, graduating as valedictorian in May 1940. For as long as he could remember, Shuttlesworth had wanted to be a preacher.
Employed by the Southern Club in Birmingham as an orderly, he married coworker Ruby Lanette Keeler, an aspiring nurse, on October 20, 1941. In April 1943, Shuttlesworth left Jefferson County for Mobile, Alabama, where he drove trucks on Brookley Air Force Base, performing World War II–related assignments. Shuttlesworth worshiped at the local Corinthian Baptist Church and occasionally delivered sermons. He enrolled in the Cedar Grove Academy Bible College at Prichard, Alabama, before moving to Selma in 1947 for educational opportunities. Shuttlesworth began studies at Selma University, then enrolled in courses at Alabama State College at Montgomery in September 1949. He earned his bachelor's degree in 1951 from Selma and later, he earned another degree from Alabama State University. While in school, he began his career as a preacher, preaching at the First Baptist Church in Selma, Alabama.
The next month, the First African Baptist Church in Selma asked Shuttlesworth to serve as pastor. In August of 1952, after graduating from Alabama State College, Shuttlesworth moved to Birmingham to become the pastor of Bethel Baptist Church. While there, Shuttlesworth became increasingly immersed in the civil rights movement, partnering with organizations such as the Civic League, the and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to increase voter registration in the Black community and to clean up saloons. In early 1953, Shuttlesworth became pastor of Bethel Baptist Church in Collegeville, Ala., and was cast as a central figure in the Civil Rights movement. He participated in the Montgomery Improvement Association and was a secretary for the Alabama branch of NAACP. The 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision inspired Shuttlesworth to become involved in civil rights activism.
He continued his involvement in civil rights in July 1955 when he petitioned the city council to integrate the police force. In 1956, Circuit Judge Walter B. Jones banned the NAACP from activity in the state in 1956, at the urging of Alabama Attorney General John Patterson. So, Shuttlesworth and Ed Gardner created a new group called the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR). Shuttlesworth led a mass meeting at Sardis Church the next evening, and was named president. This group continued the fight for equal rights. The ACMHR raised money from local meetings and used both lawsuits and direct actions to achieve its goals. For example, when the city refused to hire Black police officers, the ACMHR sued. Also, after the U.S Supreme Court ruled that bus segregation was illegal in Montgomery, Alabama in December of 1956, Shuttlesworth announced that the ACMHR would challenge segregation laws in Birmingham.
Shuttlesworth announced his plans to lead his community in a protest of Birmingham Transit Company, in support of the Montgomery bus boycott. Fred Shuttlesworth’s activism made him a target of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). On Xmas night, 1956, KKK members in Alabama bombed his home. Rev. Shuttlesworth was home at the time of the bombing with his family and two members of Bethel Baptist Church, where he served as pastor. Because he escaped unharmed, Shuttlesworth and his followers believed he was saved because God was calling him to spearhead the fight against segregation. In 1957, Shuttlesworth, along with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Joseph Lowery and Ralph Abernathy found of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). The SCLC believed in nonviolence, meaning they would protest peacefully without using force. Their motto was: "Not one hair of one head of one person should be harmed."
During 1957 he was brutalized with baseball bats and bike chains for trying to enroll two of his daughters in an all White elementary school. On June 29, 1958, he endured a second bombing at his church. However, he persisted in his demands for integrated buses, schools, and parks and was arrested in October 1959 for his outspokenness and actions. In 1961, Shuttlesworth moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, to lead the Revelation Baptist Church. However, he remained very involved in the Birmingham campaign and often returned to help lead protests. Shuttlesworth participated in the sit-ins against segregated lunch counters in 1960 and took part in the organization and completion of the Freedom Rides in 1961. The Freedom Rides were journeys by civil rights activists to challenge the non-enforcement of Supreme Court rulings (Boynton v. Virginia) that declared segregated interstate travel unconstitutional. Organized primarily by CORE and SNCC, they used nonviolent tactics to test and defy segregation in bus terminals, waiting rooms, and restaurants.
Before the Freedom Rides began, Shuttlesworth warned that Alabama could be very dangerous. He respected the courage of the activists but felt there might be safer ways to advance the Civil Rights Movement. However, the Riders decided to go ahead with their plan. Once the Freedom Rides were confirmed, Shuttlesworth worked with the Congress of Racial Equality (C.O.R.E.) to organize them. He was dedicated to making the Rides successful, especially when they came through Alabama. He encouraged other ministers to help the Riders. It was Shuttlesworth who asked Attorney General Robert Kennedy to protect freedom riders. Shuttlesworth mobilized some of his fellow clergy to assist the rides. After the Riders were badly beaten and nearly killed in Birmingham and Anniston during the Rides, he sent deacons to pick up the Riders from a hospital in Anniston. Many students involved in the Rides looked up to Shuttlesworth because of his strong commitment to ending segregation. Shuttlesworth's fervent passion for equality made him a role model to many of the Riders.
A 1961 CBS documentary called Shuttlesworth the "man most feared by Southern racists." Shuttlesworth was laying the groundwork for something bigger. In the spring of 1963, he returned from Revelation Baptist Church in Cincinnati, to Birmingham to help the SCLC organize sit-ins at downtown department stores. Thousands of African Americans marched to protest racism and were met with violent opposition. Later that year, he persuaded the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to bring the civil rights movement to Birmingham after a dispirited campaign in Albany, Ga. He wanted them to lead a major campaign to end segregation there. He called this "Project C," with "C" standing for "confrontation". Shuttlesworth believed that city leaders would not end segregation unless they were forced to.
Shuttlesworth wanted to create a situation that would force Birmingham's leaders to realize that segregation was too costly to maintain. He told Dr. King, "I assure you if you come to Birmingham, this movement can not only gain prestige, but really shake the country". The Birmingham Campaign initially involved lunch counter sit-ins and marches. The segregationist politicians issued an injunction against the marches. Shuttlesworth and King did not have the full support of Birmingham's Black community, and some thought King's presence was a setback for race relations. Many felt that Birmingham was too tough and wanted King and his followers to leave, which threatened the movement. The movement was at a standstill and they discussed that something else had to be done to shock the nation into action. It was the Children’s Crusade, allowing school aged kids to be involved—for which Shuttlesworth pushed and to which King reluctantly acquiesced—that galvanized national sympathies. They all felt that using children would be a powerful idea and bring Birmingham to its knees.
This effort was greatly helped by Eugene "Bull" Connor, the city's Public Safety Commissioner and the city's most powerful public official. Connor used police dogs and fire hoses against peaceful young demonstrators, which was shown on television across the country. When that didn't turn them back, he put them behind bars. More than 2,500 people were jailed, including the children. This was the turning point. Shuttlesworth, himself was hospitalized as a result Connor’s water cannons as he led mass nonviolent demonstrations. Images of the resulting mayhem appeared on television and in newspapers throughout the country and helped to shift public opinion in favor of national civil-rights legislation. President John F. Kennedy declared the struggle for civil rights a moral issue.
Shuttlesworth's tactics were controversial. He often pressed King for stronger action at SCLC meetings. However, Shuttlesworth continued to work to secure Birmingham’s public accommodations and the desegregation of its schools. On September 4, 1963, Shuttlesworth walked with Birmingham African American students on the first day city schools were integrated. Shuttlesworth's work wasn't just in Birmingham. In 1964, he went to St. Augustine, Florida, where he joined marches and protests against segregation. Beyond Birmingham the demonstrations pressured President John F. Kennedy to introduce into Congress legislation that eventually became the 1964 Civil Rights Act. This law effectively ended segregation in public accommodations in the United States.
In 1965, he was active in the Selma Voting Rights Movement, including the Selma to Montgomery marches. These marches led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which protected the right to vote for all citizens. Shuttlesworth played a key role in achieving these two major civil rights laws. In 1966, Shuttlesworth became the pastor of the Greater New Light Baptist Church in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he remained until his retirement forty years later. He created the of the Shuttlesworth Housing Foundation in 1989, offering grants to help people purchase homes. Shuttlesworth helped establish the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (BCRI) in 1992 and served on its board of directors. In 1998, Shuttlesworth became an early signer and supporter of the Birmingham Pledge, a grassroots community committed to combating racism and prejudice, which has been used for programs in all fifty states and in more than twenty countries.
In January 2001, Shuttlesworth received the Presidential Citizens Medal from President Bill Clinton, the second-highest civilian award in the United States, second only to the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The International Civil Rights Walk of Fame inducted Shuttlesworth in 2005. In July 2008, the Birmingham Airport Authority voted to honor Shuttlesworth by renaming the city's airport as the Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport. His ministry and foundation also had a significant impact over the years. Because of their leadership throughout the Civil Rights movement and defiance of segregation laws, Abernathy, King and Shuttlesworth became known as the “Big Three” of the movement. Shuttlesworth was widely known as Alabama’s greatest and most fearless freedom fighter. He endured beatings, bombings, and thefts, he was jailed 19 times and was constantly challenged by hardcore segregationists, but he refused to lose sight of God’s calling and faithfulness unto him. His tireless activism in the face of violent opposition led Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to describe him as “the most courageous civil rights fighter in the South.” Fred Shuttlesworth passed away on October 5, 2011, at the age of 89 in Birmingham.