This story is part of a series of articles, “Bending Toward Justice,” focusing on the 60th anniversary of events that took place in Birmingham during 1963 that changed the face of the city, and the world, in the ongoing struggle for equality and human rights. The series name is a reference to a quote by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.: “Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.” The series will continue through 2023.

“The Lord knew I lived in a hard town, so he gave me a hard head.”

Late in his life, that was a guaranteed laugh line for Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth. Delivered with wry matter-of-factness by the leader of the civil rights movement in Birmingham, it was a well-earned reward for having lived through the city’s hardest days, when he was the nemesis of Public Safety Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor, the Ku Klux Klan, and others determined to preserve segregation at any cost.

Prompted by the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court’s decision that declared racial segregation in public schools as unconstitutional, Shuttlesworth dedicated himself and his congregation at Bethel Baptist Church to the civil rights struggle. A “drum major” for equal rights, as proclaimed by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Shuttlesworth became known for what he called “rip-roarin” sermons, backed by relentless agitation against segregation. Fellow Birmingham minister C. Herbert Oliver recalled later that Shuttlesworth “was simply determined to push the barriers of racial segregation down — no apologies, no excuse, just ‘We want our rights as Americans, and we must have them.’”

Assessing Shuttlesworth’s leadership of the Birmingham movement, author Taylor Branch — who won the Pulitzer Prize for his civil rights history “Parting the Waters” — alluded to the minister’s fearlessness in the face of violence. He described Shuttlesworth as “an honest monarch,” whose unyielding endurance of violence against him — being jailed on trumped-up charges, bombings of his home and church, a beating by a mob, being blasted into a wall by a high-pressure fire hose during the climactic demonstrations of 1963 — underscored his message of nonviolence.

“There was a rare quality about Shuttlesworth,” Branch said. “He claimed the prerogatives of the monarch in terms of his leadership style, but he was honest in his willingness to be out front when the shooting started. People responded to that.”

Shuttlesworth’s fearlessness was rooted in faith. Any conversation with him was peppered with references to God, the Bible and Christian doctrine. Musing once on the distinction between faith and belief, he said, “I’ve seen enough in my life to know God is real. I don’t even have to believe it. I just know it.”

From 2004 through 2006, as a freelance writer, Alabama Power’s Mark Kelly spent considerable time in Shuttlesworth’s company, mostly during the minister’s frequent visits to Birmingham, but also at his home in Cincinnati and on a daylong trip where Shuttlesworth spoke to the annual meeting of a Black farmers cooperative in Epes, Alabama. The two had many conversations, both formal and informal. The interview excerpted here took place in Birmingham in 2004 and is being published for the first time.

Shuttlesworth died in Birmingham in 2011 and is buried at Oak Hill Cemetery. March 18 marks the 101st anniversary of his birth.

What brought you to Birmingham and Bethel Baptist Church?

I was fortunate to be called to Birmingham. It was time for God to begin work in Birmingham and in the deep South. It was past time, really, to be done with segregation, to make the country look at itself and its people — and to look out for its people. So, I had no doubt that God had sent me to Bethel.

I was ready for Birmingham. Birmingham wasn’t ready for me.

Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth in 1957, the year after founding the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights.

Why Bethel? What made it a special place?

It was the way the people of the church coalesced around me and followed me. They accepted me, accepted what I thought. It’s unusual that a church will follow a preacher into danger. But this beautiful congregation wanted to end segregation just as bad as I did. They gave me their complete allegiance, followed me without a complaint. They were willing, from the start and at all times, to raise their voices in truth against injustice.

That spread beyond Bethel pretty quickly, didn’t it?

It did. We were fortunate at that time to have some preachers who were ready to stand up and start calling for change. The people were ready, too. I think that Black people in Birmingham at that time ought to be recognized as some of the best soldiers ever in the army of God. We didn’t have any way to go but forward, so that’s where we went. That was the basis for the very gentle slogan I used: The movement is moving.

What made the timing right?

I wasn’t thinking about the timing. It seemed to me like we’d waited long enough. Don’t you think so? [laughs] When we started, the feeling even among most Black folks was that we ought to just keep to ourselves and wait for things to get better. I don’t mean they were against us, necessarily, but they were not for us. They wanted to keep on waiting.

And you didn’t want to wait?

I was never satisfied with the idea of doing nothing, or just criticizing without offering some call to positive action. I was fortunate to have other people around me who believed like I did, that God puts you where he wants you to be for his purpose.

Talking about the Black people in Birmingham at that time, I used to use the term, 40 percent of the population, zero percent of the privileges. Wasn’t it time for that to change?

Shuttlesworth gives instructions from the pulpit at Bethel prior to a demonstration. (APT)

In 1956, in an effort to hamper the ability of civil rights activists to plan, organize, and carry out protests and other anti-segregation activities, the state of Alabama outlawed the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). In response, Shuttlesworth and other ministers formed the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR). Months later, Shuttlesworth announced plans to challenge segregation laws through direct action on Dec. 26, 1956, the day after Christmas. On Christmas night, his home next to Bethel was leveled by a bomb, with him, his family and some visiting fellow ministers somehow escaping unharmed.

It’s hard for most people to imagine that, if a bomb meant to kill them exploded beneath the floor directly under them and they survived, they would do anything other than get out of harm’s way. But that happened to you, and your reaction was quite the opposite. You have told me before that surviving that bombing convinced you that the Klan could not kill you.

It did. The Klan intended to blow me into heaven, but God had better purposes, bigger purposes. I escaped with my life, though I don’t think I escaped anything. I think I was kept by his grace. And yes, it was that bombing that really took fear out of my mind. It made me realize how close God was to me. Closer than the clothes on your back, he can get in you. He can fortify you, make you almost unaware of danger — or at least make it so you don’t care about it.

You learn that you live only for God’s purposes. Nothing else has as much relevance as trying to please God.

Even when it puts you — and others — into some dangerous spots?

Without at least the hope that a person can be free, can be received by others and work with others, he’s not a full person. But Birmingham was Bull Connor’s town. He was trying to kill hope in people’s minds.

Slavery, domination, has always been bad in God’s mind. Both the Old Testament and the New Testament talk about the treatment of people. Christ’s commission, the spirit of the Lord is upon me, he sent me to preach the Gospel, to heal, to relieve the poor, et cetera. Isn’t that every minister’s job, every church person’s job, every Christian’s?

It’s not supposed to be easy. I learned that if you can’t take it, you can’t make it. If you’re really going to do the Lord’s work, you have to put yourself on the line and be willing to suffer in the right way, not retaliating. You have to be willing to offer everything you have on the altar of sacrifice.

If you’re going to do that, you can’t be afraid. Fear keeps people from being their best. Fear inclines a person to be bitter.

Tell us about the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights.

The Alabama Christian Movement was born when the state outlawed the NAACP. The governor’s injunction against that organization was served on me in front of the Masonic Temple [the eight-story structure on 4^th Avenue North in downtown Birmingham was a center of local Black society and culture during the Jim Crow and segregation eras].

This deputy walked up, wearing the longest-barreled pistol I had ever seen. He had this roll of paper that, when he unrolled it, just about went to the ground. I took it and looked at it and asked him, “What does this mean?”

“It means you can’t do nothing,” he said.

“Nothing?”

“NOTHING!” he shouted at me. White people in authority at that time talked hard to Black people. Then he said it again: “Nothing.” And I said to him, “Mister, nothing will never be our destiny.”

And the ACMHR quickly became the key organization of the Birmingham Movement.

The Birmingham Movement was always strong. Martin (Luther King Jr.) knew he could depend upon it because it was led by a person who was not afraid to speak. For the most part, the ACMHR was the strongest thing in SCLC. They elected me to be the president, a position I’ve always thought it was my calling from creation to fill.

Statue of Shuttlesworth outside the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. (The George F. Landegger Collection of Alabama Photographs in Carol M. Highsmith’s America, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division)

Continuing to agitate, in the summer of 1957, Shuttlesworth and his wife, Ruby, attempted to enroll their daughters at Birmingham’s all-white Phillips High School. Emerging at the school’s front entrance from a car driven by Rev. J.S. Phifer, Shuttlesworth was confronted by a mob brandishing baseball bats, lead pipes and heavy chains. They beat him severely, with members of the mob yelling their intent to kill him, but Shuttlesworth managed to make it back to the car and was taken to a hospital. There, the white nurses and doctor admonished Shuttlesworth for challenging the mob, expressing amazement that his injuries were not even more extensive. The doctor wanted to admit him to the hospital, but Shuttlesworth was determined to attend a mass meeting that night at New Hope Baptist Church.

Why was it important for you to be at that meeting?

I had to get there that night to show people what nonviolence really is. When I got there, it was so crowded that people were standing around the church on the outside. They couldn’t get in because even the balcony was full.

Everybody was angry. I could hear people cursing when I was going through the crowd on the outside. My arm was in a sling, and it made them even madder when they saw that. I had on the same suit, which had holes in it where my knees had scrubbed the ground.

When I went in, I didn’t sit behind the pulpit as I usually did. I pulled up a chair and sat right on the edge of the stage, where everybody could see me. Some were crying, and even inside the church, I could hear a few words that you don’t use in Sunday school.

When it came time for me to speak, I sat there and said, “Everybody in here tonight is mad, isn’t that right?” And they said they were, and there was some more cursing, so I said, “In fact, folks in here tonight are mad as hell, aren’t you?” And I heard it again, so I said, “OK, I’ll tell you what: Everybody who’s mad, stand up.” Everybody stood up but me. I said, “That’s strange. Y’all are mad, but I’m not mad.” When they sat back down, I said, “Now, everybody who got beaten up today, stand up.”

Of course, nobody stood. I said, “Well, I got beaten up, and I’m not even mad at the people who did it. I forgive them like the Lord did, and that’s how we must live. That’s what nonviolence means, that you’re taking it for the Lord’s sake, not for your sake.” I told them, “We are doing a thing here in Birmingham, and we must go through the darkness in order that the light might come. We will show people by our actions here that we can pass through this.”

I reminded them what that meant, that not one hair on the head of one white person will be harmed by us as we seek freedom. And I believe that’s what won the battle of nonviolence in Birmingham, because I never had to address it again.

The climactic actions against segregation in Birmingham took place in the spring of 1963, when King and several of his key lieutenants came to Birmingham to help organize and lead the demonstrations. Those demonstrations became known as “The Children’s Crusade,” because it had been decided that having children confronted by police dogs and fire hoses, arrested, and jailed would capture the attention of the world and strengthen the calls for change.

From left, King, Shuttlesworth and Abernathy hold a news conference at the A.G. Gaston Motel during the demonstrations of 1963. (Alabama Department of Archives and History)

What does the Children’s Crusade mean to you today?

It was literally children, along with a few adults, who went to jail in Birmingham from that park and around that park and around City Hall, that broke the back of segregation. We had Wyatt Walker, James Bevel, and some others work with them, help them get some understanding of who they were, how they ought to be related to God and depend on God to carry them through crisis. They just presented themselves, and it’s one of the most beautiful pictures of my life to have seen those young people coming from schools in streams, coming to be taught about freedom and what it really means to be free.

But you came in for some criticism for having the children protest.

I realize that I have the advantage of having been brought through some things that are unusual. But God does the unusual when he wants unusual things to happen. That park represents one of the most significant victories in the history of America. We are still a long way from justice and freedom for all people, but the actions of those children at that time has so much to do with us winning that battle and with this country coming whatever distance we have as a result.

How far have we come?

At least we are at a place where we can look back and be thankful that we came through it. Legal segregation was broken. But we must be aware that the results of brotherhood have not fully arrived. It’s strange that meanness seems to have taken over in our world. That’s why I hope that Black people and white people can get together and see if we can’t put down hatred and meanness.

Is that possible?

With God and with goodwill, all things are possible. I don’t think we’re that far apart. Even at the time we were fighting segregation, I never believed that the majority of white people hated me, or wanted to beat me up in the street, or meant me any harm. That was Bull. That was the Klan. That was not every white person.

Your organization was very deliberately named the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights.

I never did think the human rights struggle was just for Black folks. Enough sacrifice has been made that anybody ought to feel ashamed not to want freedom for themselves and everybody else. Don’t disenfranchise yourself.

We have the history of things having happened that brought us to this point. From here, I’d like to see white people and Black people embrace each other in love and the spirit of fellowship and brotherhood, really connect with one another. That’s how God wants us to move forward.

How does that relate to what happened a generation or more ago, when you and Dr. King and others led what essentially was a revolution, in which some people — including Dr. King — paid the ultimate price?

God did not intend for too many of us to lead revolutionary lives, even against violence and hate and meanness. He takes us rather on an evolutionary path, where we grow gradually, with each experience teaching us more about what we’ve been and where we’ve been and what God has done. As that song in the Christian vernacular says, [singing softly] “Each victory in faith, each victory in faith should help us, some other victory to win, some other to win.” We ought to go on and, as Dr. King said, just be against evil. Be for justice for the poor, generally and specifically. And just be for truth and try to live truth each day.

We should not be bitter. Instead of being bitter people, we should be better people. We are better because of what we know, what we’ve come through, and what we’ve done. I’d like that for Birmingham especially, because there’s no place like Birmingham in my heart. [Smiling] For you see, the criminal always returns to the scene of the crime.

Today, Bethel Baptist Church is on the National Register of Historic Places. The structure at right marks the former location of the parsonage, the home of Shuttlesworth and his family that was bombed on Christmas Night 1956. (National Park Service)

When you reflect on those times and your role in them, what are your thoughts?

I must tell you that I’ve never felt as if I would have done anything differently. If I felt the same drive, the same pressures of intensity and need and faith as I did then, I think I would go through everything I did again — including the bombing, including the beating, including the fire hoses. It taught me that we should be trying to show who God is, not who we are. Show what God can do through us, and to us, and with us, not showing that we are strong ourselves.

How do you feel about the honors and attributes that come your way — especially those that come from Birmingham?

When they named [Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth Blvd.] for me in 1988, I said, Birmingham tried for years to kill me. They couldn’t, and now they begin to honor me. Now, I think they honor me too much. I don’t want people to see me as a super person or a person who knows everything. I just want people to be brotherly and sisterly and I’ll just try to be me. I only wish people would understand how simply God wants us to live life and how beautiful it would be if we did.

That’s the way I feel.