1955: Petitions the EARLY YEARS FIGHT FOR CIVIL RIGHTS Birmingham City Commission to hire black March 18, 1922: Born in Mount Meigs, Montgomery police officers. He issues County, Ala. a statement endorsed by 1955 76 ministers and leads a 1925: Moves with his family to Birmingham delegation to City Hall.
1940: Graduates from Rosedale High School Feb. 3, 1956: Shuttlesworth and lawyer Arthur 1941: Marries his first wife, Ruby. The couple have four Shores accompany Autherine Lucy in her attempt children before divorcing in 1970. She dies in 1971. to become the first black student to attend the University of Alabama. 1942: Works as civilian truck driver at an Army air base June 5, 1956: Preaches at Sardis Baptist Church in Mobile during World War II. in Birmingham on the night he helps to start the 1956 Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights 1943: Begins preaching and attends Cedar Grove — a week after Alabama Attorney General John Academy Bible College in Prichard Dec. 25, 1956: Patterson outlaws the NAACP. The church “was packed,” Shuttlesworth said later. 1949: Becomes pastor of the First Baptist Church in A Ku Klux Klan bomb explodes between the church and Selma the parsonage where Shuttlesworth slept, collapsing Dec. 26, 1956: the house on top of him. Shuttlesworth walks away, Six days after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling took 1951: Graduates from Selma University and preaches that it was a miracle. effect ordering Montgomery city buses to integrate, the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth and others challenge 1952: Graduates from Alabama State College the law in Birmingham by joining white passengers Feb. 14, 1957: on a city bus. 1953: Becomes pastor of Bethel Baptist in Collegeville. Shuttlesworth, King, the Rev. Ralph David Abernathy and other ministers start the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
March 6, 1957: Lamar Weaver, an early supporter of civil rights, greets the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth and his 1957 wife, Ruby, in the whites-only waiting room at Birmingham’s train depot, Terminal Station. A day after, the Alabama Public Service Commission rules that the waiting rooms must remain segregated. Police eject Weaver from the waiting room, and he is attacked by a mob of more than 100 white protesters. The Shuttlesworths later board a train. 1958: Shuttlesworth petitions for the desegregation of Birmingham city schools. He also renews a lawsuit to desegregate the city’s parks. 1958
June 29, 1958: Bethel Baptist Church is bombed again. Oct. 28, 1958: At the Birmingham jail, the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth encounters barriers as he posts bail after being arrested for sitting in the white section of a city bus.
1959
April 19, 1960: Shuttlesworth is sued along with The New York Times for libel in the 1960 landmark Sullivan v. New York Times case. Shuttlesworth is found Shuttlesworth and a group of liable and damages May 15, 1961: Freedom Riders discuss plans at Birmingham’s against him are set Greyhound Terminal after drivers refused to carry at $500,000. His them farther. One day earlier, a bus is bombed car is confiscated outside of Anniston and passengers on a second by law enforcement bus are beaten in Birmingham. The Freedom Riders officials. were student activists and other volunteers who challenged segregation on interstate buses and in bus terminals. Later, these riders caught a plane out of Birmingham to New Orleans. 1961 May 18, 1961: In a CBS documentary, newsman Howard K. Smith calls Shuttlesworth “the man most feared by Southern racists.”
Summer 1961: Moves to Cincinnati to become pastor of Revelation Baptist Church. 1962: Accompanies the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and others to a meeting in Washington with Attorney General 1962 Robert F. Kennedy April 6-7, 1963: Leads the first mass and Vice President marches to Birmingham City Hall with King. Lyndon Johnson, Police use billy clubs against marchers. calling for a second Emancipation May 7, 1963: Shuttlesworth is Proclamation to end knocked down by a fire hose segregation and hospitalized.
Sept. 17, 1963: Speaks at the funeral of Carole 1963 Robertson, one of the four girls killed. King delivers the main eulogies for the other three girls killed.
Feb. 4, 1965: Speaks at a rally in Selma with March 9, 1964: Malcolm X. The U.S. Supreme Court reverses the ruling against Shuttlesworth and March 7, 1965: others in Sullivan v. New York Times, A Selma-to-Montgomery march for voting creating a landmark free speech case. rights is halted at the Edmund Pettus Bridge by state troopers and police using tear gas and billy clubs in what becomes known as “Bloody Sunday” 1964
Jan. 18, 1965: King kicks off a voter registration drive in Selma. 1965 With King are the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, left; the Rev. Ralph Abernathy, right; and the Rev. March 9, 1965: Shuttlesworth and others join King Andrew Young, far right. in prayer just across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. That night, the Rev. James Reeb, a white minister Birmingham News file photos/Robert Adams, Louis Arnold, Norman Dean, Ed Jones, Tom Lankford supporting civil rights, is severely beaten and dies.