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Salem Press

Great Lives from History: African Americans

Fred Shuttlesworth

by Elizabeth D. Schafer

Religious leader and activist

Shuttlesworth established the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights, guided civil rights activism in Birmingham, Alabama, and assisted demonstrators protesting segregation. His efforts contributed to the passage of federal legislation, most notably the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965. Shuttlesworth also developed programs to help homeless people find homes.

Areas of achievement: Civil rights; Religion and theology; Social issues

Early Life

Fred Shuttlesworth was born on March 18, 1922, in Mt. Meigs, Alabama, east of the state capital Montgomery. He was born Freddie Lee Robinson to parents Vetter Greene and Alberta Robinson. His mother later relocated with her children to an African American neighborhood in Oxmoor, Alabama, and raised them in the African Methodist Episcopal faith. When Shuttlesworth was four years old, his mother married William Nathan Shuttlesworth, a coal miner and sharecropper. Shuttlesworth studied at Oxmoor School, where principal Israel L. Ramsey’s confidence, religious faith, and courage impressed him. 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. Employed by the Southern Club in Birmingham as an orderly, he married coworker Ruby Lanette Keeler, an aspiring nurse, on October 20, 1941. During the next decade, they had three daughters—Patricia, Ruby Fredericka, and Carolyn—and one son, Fred, Jr. 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.

Life’s Work

Shuttlesworth began studies at Selma University, then enrolled in courses at Alabama State College at Montgomery in September, 1949. The next month, the First African Baptist Church in Selma asked Shuttlesworth to serve as pastor. In August, 1952, he graduated from Alabama State. Later that year, he moved to Birmingham to become pastor at Bethel Baptist Church.

The 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision inspired Shuttlesworth to become involved in civil rights activism. He participated in the Montgomery Improvement Association and was membership secretary for the Alabama branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). After a circuit judge limited NAACP work in Alabama, Shuttlesworth created the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR) in 1956, serving as president through 1969.

In December, 1956, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that segregation on Montgomery buses was illegal, Shuttlesworth announced that the ACMHR would challenge Birmingham laws enforcing bus segregation. On December 25, 1956, Ku Klux Klansmen bombed Shuttlesworth’s house. In 1957, Shuttlesworth became a founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). He served as secretary of that group from 1958 to 1970. Shuttlesworth was attacked again when he arrived at segregated Phillips High School, attempting to enroll his daughters in September, 1957. 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.

Shuttlesworth sheltered Freedom Riders in his home after they were attacked at Birmingham’s bus terminal in 1961. That year, he was named pastor of the Revelation Baptist Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. In the spring of 1963, he returned 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. Images of attacks on demonstrators provoked President John F. Kennedy to support a federal civil rights bill; he discussed that legislation with Shuttlesworth. On September 4, 1963, Shuttlesworth walked with Birmingham African American students on the first day city schools were integrated. He also spoke in Selma and helped organize the voting-rights march from Selma to Montgomery in March, 1965.

In January, 1966, Shuttlesworth formed the Greater New Light Baptist Church, where he remained until his retirement forty years later. He created 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. During the early twenty-first century, Shuttlesworth served as SCLC president. In September, 2010, he and his daughters spoke to students at the school where they had been assaulted.

Significance

Shuttlesworth empowered African Americans through his leadership and activism for integration. Many of his contemporaries, particularly Martin Luther King, Jr., considered Shuttlesworth among the bravest of the civil rights leaders because of his unrelenting efforts in the face of threats and violent attacks. In 1992, a statue of Shuttleworth was placed outside the BCRI. Since 2002, the BCRI has presented the annual Fred L. Shuttlesworth Human Rights Award, its highest honor, to people who exemplify his qualities and ideals. The International Civil Rights Walk of Fame inducted Shuttlesworth in 2005. His ministry and foundation also have had a significant impact; by 2010, approximately 460 families had secured housing with his assistance.

Further Reading

1 

Arsenault, Raymond. Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Discusses Shuttlesworth’s involvement in protests involving interstate bus transportation, including his advice to U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.

2 

Manis, Andrew M. A Fire You Can’t Put Out: The Civil Rights Life of Birmingham’s Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1999. Analyzes influences and experiences that developed Shuttlesworth’s religious and humanitarian philosophies from his childhood through the 1990’s.

3 

White, Marjorie L. A Walk to Freedom: The Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights, 1956-1964. Birmingham, Ala.: Birmingham Historical Society, 1998. Shuttlesworth’s preface introduces this collection of contemporary photographs and document images relevant to the Birmingham Civil Rights movement.

4 

White, Marjorie L., and Andrew M. Manis, eds. Birmingham Revolutionaries: The Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 2000. Examines how Shuttlesworth’s religious fervor and assertive, confrontational tactics motivated African Americans to protest segregation. Includes an autobiographical essay by Shuttlesworth.

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
Schafer, Elizabeth D. "Fred Shuttlesworth." Great Lives from History: African Americans, edited by Carl L. Bankston, Salem Press, 2011. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=GLAA_168758003117.
APA 7th
Schafer, E. D. (2011). Fred Shuttlesworth. In C. L. Bankston (Ed.), Great Lives from History: African Americans. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Schafer, Elizabeth D. "Fred Shuttlesworth." Edited by Carl L. Bankston. Great Lives from History: African Americans. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2011. Accessed October 22, 2025. online.salempress.com.