13
It was a quirk of the 24-hour news cycle that the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, one of the last lions of the civil rights movement, died on the same day as Apple founder Steve Jobs.
The New York Times wrote a glowing tribute, but on television news Shuttlesworth's death was somewhat eclipsed by that of the iPod inventor. Many commentaries focused on the way that Jobs' inventions transformed our everyday lives. Our children, it's true, simply can't imagine life without personal computers and Pixar. Many even posted tributes on Facebook: "Thanks for my iPod, Steve."
In the type of hyperbole that’s not uncommon after the death of someone so celebrated, Jobs’ original partner, Steve Wozniak, compared Jobs to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in terms of his social significance.
At that point, I shook my head and said, “No, no, no. Another man died today who deserves the comparison with King — who was, in fact, King’s right-hand man in Birmingham.”
Shuttlesworth, 89, was renowned for his fearlessness, even among this brave brotherhood. He endured beatings with whips and chains by angry white mobs and survived repeated fire-hosings by Birmingham police. His parsonage was bombed on Christmas Day, 1956 — with his children inside — when Klansmen detonated dynamite outside his bedroom as he lay sleeping. “I think he was surprised to see his 89th birthday,” said his widow, Sephira Bailey Shuttlesworth in an interview with me. “He would tell you again and again that he didn’t anticipate to live to see his 40th birthday, that he would die fighting Jim Crow and segregation.”
She added, “he’s been negotiating with God for a long time. Back in the movement days he made a deal with the Lord — that if he took care of his family, he’d run all the way for the Lord. As it says in the Bible, ‘He who loseth his life for my sake shall find it.’ Fred believed that wholeheartedly — that if he lost his life in the midst of the struggle, that was a one-way ticket to heaven.”
After the Christmas Day bombing, Sephira said, “All fear left him, and he could feel God’s presence. He heard the voice of God saying, ‘I am here.’ I know that voice never left him, even down to the last minute. Even as we were losing him, I said, ‘Don’t you worry, God is here and so am I.’”
Despite severe health problems after a stroke five years ago, Shuttlesworth never lost his commitment to the civil rights movement. Every year on March 7, he insisted on taking part in the annual bridge march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., commemorating the infamous “Bloody Sunday” when state troopers and sheriffs attacked and tear-gassed peaceful civil-rights marchers. In 2007, Shuttlesworth fell behind when he was walking across the bridge, and somebody brought a wheelchair. In a powerfully symbolic moment, Sephira told me at the time, “The crowd parted the waters for him to come through, and Barack Obama rolled up his sleeves and pushed Fred Shuttlesworth the rest of the way.”
A battler to the end
Eighteen months later, Shuttlesworth watched from his hospital bed as Obama was elected America’s first black president. Sephira leaned over and asked, “Is that what you endured all those butt-whippings for?” Her husband replied, “Yes. Yes it was.”
Shuttlesworth continued to inspire others even from his sick bed. “People expected a worn-out vegetable in that bed. But they always came away stronger from a nod of his head or a smile,” Sephira said. “He always looked good. He was handsome until the day he died.”
Shuttlesworth insisted on taking part in the bridge march this year despite his failing health. “He enjoyed being with his comrades and his colleagues,” Sephira said. “His biggest issue in his period of illness would be that people had forgotten him and left him out.)
His widow is convinced there is no danger of that. She believes that her husband will take his place beside King and the Rev. Ralph Abernathy as one of the titans of America’s civil rights movement: “You can’t tell the story of Martin Luther King or the civil rights movement without Fred Shuttlesworth being in it. It’s in the fabric of our nation.”
Sephira has joined a group of activists in establishing the nonprofit Fred Shuttlesworth Foundation, (www.fredshuttlesworthfoundation.org) aimed at perpetuating his legacy as well as fostering a new generation of activists. She has plenty of work to do yet here on earth, but would have liked to join the party when her husband entered the Pearly Gates. “What a party it will be for Fred Shuttlesworth, ” she said with a laugh. “We know he’s going to come in giving orders.”
Joining his civil-rights brothers
The Rev. Joseph Lowery, another pioneer in the movement, told her, “Martin and Ralph will be waiting at the gate.”
Shuttlesworth will go down in history for his work in Birmingham in the 1950s and 1960s, but he continued to fight for civil rights during his 47 years as a pastor at Greater New Light Baptist Church in Cincinnati. The fire in his eyes, that passion for justice, remained undiminished when I met him in the mid-80s and frequently interviewed him about the important issues of the day. He met Sephira, his second wife, during that time and referred to her as his “latter-day blessing.” He is survived by his five children from his first marriage and Sephira’s daughter.
Shuttlesworth moved back to Birmingham not long after suffering a stroke in 2007, but several busloads of his Cincinnati congregation are making the trip to Birmingham for his Oct. 24 funeral.
Even as a young boy, growing up in a devout Christian household, Shuttlesworth was stung by the distinctly un-Christian nature of segregation. “My husband was born into action,” Sephira said. “He heard the gospel that man is created in God’s own image, not ‘white men.’ My husband had something in him that told him, ‘This is not right and something has to be done about it.’ You can’t run from God or whom you’re intended to be.”
Before the civil rights movement, she said, “there were so many human beings who couldn’t dream of being who they were supposed to be. Life was literally locked inside a whole race of people.”
He didn’t die a either billionaire or market a single brilliant invention, but Fred Shuttlesworth changed the way we live in these United States more profoundly than any high-tech gadget, however ingenious, ever could. Noted Sephira, “he vowed that ‘even if it costs my life, I will give people an opportunity to explore their dreams.’ That might be even more important than an iPhone.”
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2209.
About the Author