BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — When a little-known black
Baptist preacher named Martin Luther King took the helm of the Montgomery,
Ala., bus boycott in 1955, the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth was already in
Birmingham trying to start a movement, but nobody was paying attention.
Shuttlesworth was from a small church. His
credentials and pedigree made it easy for local whites to dismiss him as a
radical. Until King came to Birmingham, Shuttlesworth couldn't get the national
press to recognize his city as the embodiment of the horrors of the segregated
South.
He was just another black preacher getting beat up,
said former Atlanta mayor, congressman and United Nations ambassador Andrew
Young, who worked alongside King and Shuttlesworth in the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference. All three men helped establish the organization in 1957.
"They were sued together, they helped organize
SCLC together," Young said of King and Shuttlesworth. "He wanted the
spotlight very much, but there wasn't but one Martin Luther King."
It was King who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964
and went on to become the icon of the civil rights movement. Shuttlesworth, who
was overshadowed in life by his comrade in the movement, was again eclipsed by
King in death.
Though he died nearly three weeks ago,
Shuttlesworth is only now being buried. The reason for the delay: The
dedication of the King Memorial on the National Mall, sending most of
Shuttlesworth's civil rights colleagues to Washington last weekend.
Had they not been there, they would have likely
been in Birmingham remembering Shuttlesworth.
"His friends and Martin's friends were the
same," Young said. "But you don't have two memorials at the same time
if you want your friends to come." Shuttlesworth's funeral will be Monday.
Among the scheduled events this weekend to remember
Shuttlesworth were a pastoral remembrance at the historic 16th Street Baptist
Church — where four black girls were killed in a bombing before Sunday services
on September 15, 1963 — and a candlelight vigil across the street in Kelly
Ingram Park, made famous the same year when news footage of policemen and
firemen unleashing dogs and blasting water hoses on defenseless civil rights
marchers was broadcast to a shocked international audience.
Long before the television cameras arrived,
Shuttlesworth was there, organizing many such nonviolent protests.
Shuttlesworth survived a Christmas 1956 bombing
that destroyed his home, an assault during a 1957 protest, chest injuries when
Birmingham authorities turned the hoses on demonstrators in 1963 and countless
arrests. He moved to Ohio to pastor a church in the early 1960s, but returned
frequently to Alabama for key protests. He came back to live in the Birmingham
area after he retired a few years ago.
"He was able to see how the civil rights
struggle kept reinventing itself in different forms," said Diane
McWhorter, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book, "Carry Me Home:
Birmingham, Alabama, the Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution."
"He was always there to make it clear that
this was a continuous struggle."
McWhorter said she never got the sense that
Shuttlesworth was bitter about King overpowering the narrative of the movement,
and that he never badmouthed King to her.
"He had a huge ego ... but he never said
anything like, 'Oh, I should've been the leader of the movement,'" she said.
"He kind of recognized that he couldn't have done what King did. But he
was just such a key ingredient that it couldn't have happened without him,
either."
In his 1963 book "Why We Can't Wait,"
King himself called Shuttlesworth "one of the nation's most courageous
freedom fighters."
After Shuttlesworth's death on Oct. 5 — the same
week the Rev. Joseph Lowery turned 89 and the Rev. Jesse Jackson turned 70 —
Alabama lowered its state flags to half-mast.
"I really do feel like he has sort of gotten
his due more and more over the last number of years," McWhorter said.
"Partly because he's outlasted everybody, with distinction and
class."
Young agreed that Shuttlesworth ultimately received
his due, and is recognized as one of the true heroes of the movement. Besides,
he pointed out, attention is no substitute for longevity.
"Yes, Martin overshadowed him," Young
said of Shuttlesworth. "But he got to live to 89. Martin didn't make it to
40."
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.
(AP
Photo/The Birmingham News, Michelle Campbell)
