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Birmingham Historical Society RESEARCH REPORT Addressing Birmingham Historical Society RESEARCH REPORT Addressing the Importance of Birmingham Civil Rights Leader; Fred Lee Shuttlesworth, Pastor, Bethel Baptist Church (1953-1961) President, Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (1956-1969) Secretary, Southern Christian Leadership Conference (1960-1970) Prepared for National Historic Landmarks Staff Review By Marjorie L. White With research assistance from Lauren Bishop, Michelle Crunk, Brenda Howell, Bill Jones, Fred Renneker, Carol Slaughter, Marjorie Lee White and volunteer proofreaders Cathy Adams, Rhonda Covington, Aaron Moyana, Joe Strickland Draft, August 2, 1997 RESEARCH REPORT Addressing the Importance of Birmingham Civil Rights Leader: Fred Lee Shuttlesworth, Pastor, Bethel Baptist Church (1953-1961) President, Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (1956-1969) Secretary, Southern Christian Leadership Conference (1960-1970) TABLE OF CONTENTS I. On Fred Shuttlesworth's Role in the Birmingham Movement 4 Statement of Significance 28 II. Fred Lee Shuttlesworth: Freedom Fighter — Highlights of His Role in the Civil Rights 30 Movement III. Comments of Contemporaries and Historians on Shuttlesworth — Opinions and Analyses 42 IV. Shuttlesworth on the Role of the Church and the ACMHR in the Civil Rights Movement — An Anthology of his Sermons, Addresses and Reports, 1957-1969; Reflections, 1977. 47 V. On the Importance of the Birmingham Civil Rights Movement — Civil Rights Participants and 57 Scholars' Reflections VI. Birmingham Churches Active in the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights 69 (ACMHR) and the Birmingham Civil Rights Movement, 1956-1963 VII. Bibliography 70 RESEARCH REPORT Addressing the Importance of Birmingham Civil Rights Leader: Fred Lee Shuttlesworth, Pastor, Bethel Baptist Church (1953-1961) President, Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (1956-1969) Secretary, Southern Christian Leadership Conference (1960-1970) APPENDICES A. Life, "Blows Against Segregation — Negro Fight for Freedom on Buses Spreads After Montgomery Ruling," Photographs of the Christmas Night Bombing of Bethel Baptist Church, Birmingham, 1956, and of the successful bus ride the next day, Life, 7 January 1957. B. Harrison E. Salisbury, "Fear and Hatred Grip Birmingham — Racial Tension Smoldering After Belated Sitdowns," The New York Times, 12 April 1960, 1, 28. Photograph of Fred Shuttlesworth, 28. C. "Integration Group Continuing Trip After Brutal Beatings Here, " The Birmingham News, 15 May 1961, 1, 10, 24. D. "Shuttlesworth Shouts 'Fire,'" Editorial, The Birmingham News, 18 May 1961, 1. E. David Lowe, Producer; Howard K. Smith, Narrator, "Who Speaks for Birmingham?" CBS Report, 60-minute Video, 18 May 1961 (filmed, March, 1961, aired 18 May 1961). Testimonials, Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR) Members, Mass Meeting, St. John A.M. E. Church, Seventh Avenue North and 15th Street, 13 March 1961, 32.33; Interview with Fred Shuttlesworth, 36.45-42.18. F. Photograph, SCLC Leaders Martin Luther King, Jr., Fred Shuttlesworth and Ralph Abernathy (left to right) at the Press Conference Announcing the Birmingham Truce, 10 May 1957, The Birmingham News. Caption by Robert Gutwillig, "Six Days in Alabama," Mademoiselle, September 1963, 189. G. Life, "The Spectacle of Racial Turbulence in Birmingham ~ They Fight A Fire That Won't Go Out," Photographs by Charles Moore, 17 May 1963. H. "LITIGATION, The Champion," TIME, 26 November 1965. I. On Fred Shuttlesworth's Role in the Birmingham Movement The history of Bethel Baptist Church is integrally linked to the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, its pastor during the years 1953 to 1961, a time of Civil Rights activism. In turn, the history of Fred Shuttlesworth is linked importantly to the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Bethel and Shuttlesworth ministered to a blue collar working-class congregation. Their focus was local. King came from the upper crust, and was a man of the world. The mutually supportive relationship of Shuttlesworth and King, and at times their conflict, was at the center of Civil Rights activism in Birmingham in Spring, 1963. Bethel Baptist Church was the platform on which Shuttlesworth stood to found the organization that marshaled the people who demonstrated in the streets, went to jail, and set the stage and backdrop for King's appeal to the naitonal and the world. Most historians agree that the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. led the Civil Rights revolution of the 1960s. His leadership began in Montgomery where he led a year-long Montgomery bus boycott to a triumphant conclusion on December 21, 1956.' The hero of Montgomery emerged as a national and international figure.2 Beginning in January, 1957, King worked principally through the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). The Birmingham campaign of Spring 1963 cemented the reputation of King and the SCLC. Through his personal acts of courage and charisma, his speeches and his writings, King dominated media coverage of Birmingham events and of the national Civil Rights Movement. Historian Adam Fairclough describes SCLC as not only dominated by King, but built around him, "the black leader of heroic proportions."3 'Shuttlesworth reflected upon King's impact and the Montgomery Boycott, "Dr. King spoke with a new voice. Not only was it a new movement, but it was a new voice. That you must love. You must not hate. The people who hate or who act like they hate you, you must . and the best thing to make out of your enemy was a friend. So this was a . had a very profound effect upon not only blacks, but whites." Fred Shuttlesworth in "Awakenings 1954- 1956," Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years (Boston: Blackside Inc.), 1986. Shuttlesworth's narration begins 00:43:09. 2Adam Fairclough, To Redeem the Soul of America: The Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Martin Luther King, Jr., (Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1987), 41. Fairclough defines the significance of this early Civil Rights victory: "After receiving a mandate from the U. S. Supreme Court, the [Montgomery] bus company allowed black passengers to sit wherever they pleased. During the course of the struggle King had become a symbol of the protest, a figure of national and international significance." 3Adam Fairclough, "The Preachers and the People: The Origins and Early Years of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, 1955-1959," The Journal of Southern History 7 (August 1986): 3, 430-432. The well-educated, scholarly Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., son of a prominent Atlanta, Georgia minister, represents an important sector of the Southern black clergy who provided leadership for the Civil Rights struggle. King pastored large, well-established churches and belonged to the social elite of the black community. Movement leaders in many Southern cities were similar upper middle class professionals and well connected to both their peers in the African American business and professional communities, as well as to white business leadership. Their style of leadership was often "accomodationist." They knew and could get along with power brokers in both the black and white communities.4 King had other extraordinary talents and leadership capabilities that allowed him to develop a significant appeal to the national media and to historians. His solid position as the leading figure of the Civil Rights struggle has been confirmed thanks to recent scholarship.5 ""Sixteenth Street Baptist Church and Sixth Avenue Baptist Church were among Birmingham's socially elite black churches. Their pastors, the Reverend John Cross and the Reverend John Porter, were friends of King. Porter was a former associate at King's Montgomery church. Prominent local black citizens who became members of King's daily strategy committee for the 1963 campaign included insurance executive and King family friend, John Drew, his Philadelphia born wife Deannie Drew and Miles College President Lucious Pitts. Porter also served in this group, as did Harold Long, minister of First Congregational Church, Miles College student leader Frank Dukes and Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights ministers J. A. Hayes of First Baptist Church, East Thomas; Nelson Smith of New Pilgrim Baptist Church; Calvin Woods of East End Baptist Church; and the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth. Dr. Ruth Barefield Pendleton served as secretary. Dr. A.G. Gaston served as an honorary member. King and Abernathy represented SCLC. Ms. Drew states that during the Spring, 1963 demonstrations, "the steering committee met early every morning to decide strategy for that day, whether we shall march, or whether we shan't march. where we shall march. and so forth." According to long time ACMHR secretary, Lola Hendricks, Rev. Shuttlesworth "was the man that had the last word." This group also raised funds, as mass protests were expensive. These strategy sessions were secret, as were the names of the committee of principally local citizens. The meetings took place at Room 30 of the A.G. Gaston Motel, at the Drew's residence and at First Congregational Church, the latter two sites both on "Dynamite Hill" in the Smithfield neighborhood of Birmingham. Deanie Drew, Interview with Bill Jones, 5 August 1993, Birmingham Historical Society Files. Lola Hendricks, Interview with author, 24 July 1997. 5 Scholarship on King and SCLC abounds. A recent search of Internet sources revealed that most major King speeches and publications, as well as over 1,000 King-related sources are readily available to an international public. An index to SCLC's papers (Papers of the Southern
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