“People in Action: Most Abused Man in Nation”
Author: King, Martin Luther, Jr.
Date: March 31, 1962
Location: New York, N.Y.
Genre: Published Article
Topic: Churches - vandalism
Details
On 8 March 1962, SCLC organized a testimonial dinner and mass meeting honoring Birmingham civil rights leaders Fred Shuttlesworth and J. S. Phifer, who were released from jail on 1 March.1 Below, King dedicates his biweekly column for the New York Amsterdam News to Shuttlesworth, calling him “one of Dixie’s most fearless freedom fighters.” King’s tribute concludes: “When that day dawns on which Negro men and women and children can walk with their heads high and finally breathe the free air as do all other men, the name of Fred Shuttlesworth will shine like a guiding star among the names of those who gave of themselves in full measure, for freedom for us all.”
Last Thursday night the good citizens of Birmingham gathered together to pay well deserved tribute to Reverends Fred Shuttlesworth and J. S. Phifer who, on the previous Thursday, had been released from “Bull” Connor’s city jail after serving 36 days.
Present also at the testimonial dinner, was a representative of civil rights leaders from across the country who had felt it their duty to journey to Birmingham to pay tribute to these latest of the Christian victims of brutal and seditious segregation. The NAACP’s Roy Wilkins delivered the principal address.2
The two ministers were jailed on January 25th, after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review an appead from a conviction on charges growing out of a protest of segregated seating on local buses.
The refusal by the high court was based on a legal technicality (the failure of the legal defense to meet a deadline set for the filing of the initial appeal).
When the case was reentered in state courts, the two ministers were denied bail and were then required to start serving the 60 and 90 day terms to which they were originally sentenced.
During the time they were in prison, they mopped the prison floors and scrubbed the greasy dishes used for the mass meals.
Far from being daunted or discouraged by this treatment, however, their spirits and courage flared like banners of defiance in the faces of their tormentors. Even while they were imprisoned, the two ministers were among the signers of a petition to Birmingham’s Mayor Arthur J. Hanes, asking for improved race relations.3
“Jailbirds”
When Mayor Hanes replied that he had thrown their petition in the wastebasket, the two ministers retorted, “Colored citizens do not consider asking for their rights the same as waving a red flag in front of a furious animal.”
They stated that. “Your calling us extraordinary people, or jailbirds, can only be interpreted as official knowledge of our determination to win freedom, even if we must suffer the indignities of working 12 hours, 7 days a week in jail, washing thousands of dishes and lifting heavy garbage cans and cartons of food.”
In conclusion, they told the Mayor that if “serving this or other terms will hasten that day when there is freedom and justice for all, then we are at your service.”4
Throughout their travail, the ministers received the full support of their congregations, their organizations and their colleagues.
Furnished Ministers
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, of which I am president, supplied ministers to fill his pulpit while Reverend Shuttlesworth was away.5 The expenses for supplying these ministers were paid by S.C.L.C., as its contribution to the struggle, so that there would be no extra burden on his congregation.
S.C.L.C. also retained William Kunstler, American Civil Liberties Union lawyer, of New York City, to aid the defense attorneys, Arthur D. Shores and Orzell Billingsley.6
This ordeal was just one in a long series suffered by this gallant servant of humanity. Back in Christmas, 1956, Shuttlesworth’s home was bombed and completely demolished.7 In winter of 1957, his church, Bethel Baptist was dynamited by racists, and late in 1957, Shuttlesworth and his wife were mobbed, beaten, and stabbed.8 They were also jailed eight times, four times during the Freedom Rides.9
He was sued for three million dollars by state officials of Alabama, his automobile and personal property sold at public auction, and his driver’s license revoked for a whole year.10 The three Shuttlesworth children were illegally arrested and beaten at Gadsden, Alabama.11
27 Actions
One of Dixie’s most fearless freedom fighters, he is currently involved in twenty-seven criminal and civil actions. He has received sentences totaling three and a half years in time and $5000 in fines.12 Fred Shuttlesworth is without a doubt one of the most abused and arrested ministers in the nation.
Birmingham has been described as the worst city this side of Johannesburg, South Africa.13
Impact
Despite the likes of Eugene (Bull) Connor and deeply entrenched habits of segregation in both the Negro and white community, Fred Shuttlesworth and the ACMHR have had an impact that Birmingham will long remember.
The desegregation of the city buses, delayed through seemingly endless litigation and police harassment, is now a reality.
Visitors of Birmingham today are shown street lights, paved streets, Negro policemen—all credited to Shuttlesworth and ACMHR. In the North Birmingham section, residents will point out “Shuttlesworth School,” “Shuttlesworth Park,” and “Shuttlesworth Pool,” each hurriedly built to stave off the persistent demands of Shuttlesworth and Company for adequate tax supported facilities.
In Demand
Nationally famous in the civil rights struggle, Mr. Shuttlesworth is in demand all over the nation. His personal magnetism attracts great crowds wherever he speaks. He has travelled and lectured in Europe. He is founder and Secretary of S.C.L.C.
When that day dawns on which Negro men and women and children can walk with their heads high and finally breathe the free air as do all other men, the name of Fred Shuttlesworth will shine like a guiding star among the names of those who gave of themselves in full measure, for freedom for us all.
1. In October 1958 Shuttlesworth and Phifer were convicted of violating bus segregation laws in Birmingham. Fined $100 each and sentenced to ninety and sixty days in jail, respectively, the pair surrendered to Birmingham authorities on 25 January 1962.
2. Nashville Christian Leadership Council president Kelly Miller Smith, Wyatt Tee Walker, Ralph Abernathy, and A. D. King also attended the events (Citizens of Birmingham, Alabama and SCLC, Program, “A testimonial honoring Rev. F. L. Shuttlesworth and Rev. J. S. Phifer,” 8 March 1962).
3. Hanes (1916–1997) served as mayor of Birmingham from 1961 to 1963. A copy of the petition was published in the Birmingham World (“Officials Asked to Wipe Out Racial Bias in City,” 10 February 1962).
4. King quotes from a letter to Hanes written by Shuttlesworth and Phifer in response to the mayor’s dismissal of their petition. The letter was published in the Birmingham World (“Shuttlesworth, Phifer Renew Request to City to End Bias; Both Serving Hard Labor Terms,” 17 February 1962).
5. During Shuttlesworth’s jailing, members of the SCLC executive board volunteered at Shuttlesworth’s Revelation Baptist Church in Cincinnati, Ohio (SCLC, Press release, “Civil rights leaders volunteer to fill Reverend Shuttlesworth’s pulpit,” 31 January 1962).
6. Although some of his fees were paid for by the ACLU, Kunstler charged SCLC a $250 retainer fee to represent Shuttlesworth (Kunstler & Kunstler, Bill for attorney services, 30 March 1962).
7. The bomb’s blast caved in the roof and shattered every window of the parsonage, though Shuttlesworth’s family only suffered minor injuries.
8. On 29 June 1958, Shuttlesworth’s body guard removed a bomb near Bethel Baptist Church, but not before it caused minor damage to the church and shattered windows up to six blocks away. In 1980, Klan member Jesse Benjamin Stoner was convicted of involvement in the crime. Also, on 9 September 1957, Shuttlesworth’s family was surrounded by a mob while leading schoolchildren to integrate all-white Phillips High School. Shuttlesworth suffered a damaged kidney, his wife, Ruby Keeler Shuttlesworth, was stabbed in the leg and slugged with a blunt object, and his daughter Ruby Fredricka Shuttlesworth suffered a fractured ankle when someone closed a car door on her leg.
9. Shuttlesworth was also jailed for violating bus segregation laws in October 1958; violating a city ordinance during the sit-ins in March 1960; and for refusing to obey an officer, for breach of the peace, and twice for conspiracy during the Freedom Rides.
10. Effective 31 August 1960, Shuttlesworth’s driver’s license was suspended for one year for two speeding violations. In addition to Shuttlesworth, Ralph Abernathy, Solomon Snowden Seay, and Joseph E. Lowery were sued for three million dollars for libel by Alabama officials. King was sued for one million dollars by Alabama governor John Patterson. For more on the libel suits against the five ministers, see Introduction in Papers 5:25–26.
11. On 16 August 1960, Shuttlesworth’s children Patricia, Ruby, and Fred Jr., were arrested in Gadsden, Alabama, for refusing to move to the back of a Greyhound bus. King sent a telegram to Attorney General William P. Rogers to investigate the confirmed “police brutality” the children experienced (King to William P. Rogers, 18 August 1960, in Papers 5:496–497).
12. By July 1961, Shuttlesworth had been convicted of six criminal charges with punishments totaling over two years in jail and $1,400 in fines for his involvement in Birmingham demonstrations, all of which he appealed. Additionally he was fined $10 and spent one day in jail on 2 June 1961 after he “refused to promise not to break any segregation laws for the next year” (“Revolving Doors Jailing, Suite Haunt Alabama Leader,” Chicago Daily Defender, 1 July 1961).
13. An article in the New York Times on Birmingham quoted an anonymous African American as saying: “The difference between Johannesburg and Birmingham is that here they have not yet opened fire with the tanks and big guns” (Harrison E. Salisbury, “Fear and Hatred Grip Birmingham,” 12 April 1960).
Source: New York Amsterdam News, 31 March 1962.