Birmingham school renames auditorium to honor Alabama civil rights icon, Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth
Ruby Shuttlesworth Bester (left) and Patricia Shuttlesworth Massengill (right) stand with Birmingham Board of Education member James Sullivan during the dedication of Phillips Academy auditorium for their father, the late Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth. (Keisa Sharpe-Jefferson / The Birmingham Times)
Patricia Shuttlesworth Massengill, 80 – daughter of legendary Birmingham civil rights leader Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth – said she tries to make as many events as she can to honor her father. But the one that took place last month brought back tough memories.
Massengill and her sister, Ruby Shuttlesworth Bester, 78, were in Birmingham to attend a ceremony dedicating the J.H. Phillips Academy auditorium in their father’s name.
In 1957, Shuttlesworth was brutally beaten and hospitalized after he attempted to enroll his daughters in what was then all-white Phillips High School. His wife, Ruby Keeler Shuttlesworth, was stabbed in the leg. Bester also was injured.
“The major trauma for me was the beating he took here at Phillips,” Massengill told academy students. “I was traumatized to the point that I never discussed any of this with my children. I have three kids and five grandkids and two great-grands.”
The Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth on a stretcher at Birmingham’s Hillman Hospital in 1957, following a vicious beating while he attempted to register daughters Patricia and Ruby at all-white Phillips High School. He is touching Patricia’s cheek. (Alabama Department of Archives and History, donated by Alabama Media Group. Photo by Ed Jones, Birmingham News.)
The ceremony came three days after the city commemorated the 60th year anniversary of the September 1963 bombing of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church that killed four little girls. Just a few months before the bombing, Shuttlesworth and other civil rights leaders, including Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., led protests against segregation that included Birmingham’s Black children, which were met with dogs and firehoses. The clashes, which stunned the nation, resulted in an agreement to begin dismantling the city’s racial separation ordinances. The Sixteenth Street bombing, which shocked the world, led to Congress passing the 1964 Civil Rights Act, outlawing segregation nationwide.
The Birmingham Board of Education in August voted to name the recently renovated auditorium in honor of Shuttlesworth. A native of Mount Meigs, Alabama, Shuttlesworth died in Birmingham in 2011 at age 89.
While growing up, Massengill said her father required an atmosphere of positivity, even with what happened at Phillips. “Daddy didn’t allow any negativity in the house. We had to remain positive about everything. Even though he was beaten, he never looked at it negatively in front of us. He said the Lord provides and the Lord protects.”
When Bester was asked what she believed her late father would have said if he was able to attend the dedication ceremony, she said sincere gratitude would have filled his heart.
“I believe he would say thank you. He always believed in praising God for what was done,” Bester said.
She added her father wouldn’t have stopped there, as she looked about the school’s recently renovated auditorium.
“… he’d look about the audience and find a way to keep inspiring someone to press forward,” Bester said.
The event at Phillips Academy not only commemorated Shuttlesworth’s legacy; it also honored the first Black students who sought enrollment at the school on Sept. 9, 1957, including Bester and Massengill.
“My word to you today is what my parents and my dad taught us,” Bester said. “Always love what is good and do what is good, and when things happen and people talk about you, be like the ducks and let it slide off your back.”
“Silence speaks volumes, and you don’t have to answer every negative thing, because I’ve learned in 78 years people will try to push your buttons to get you acting like a fool. That happened in ‘57 and the law was not changed until 1963, but look what has come out. I want you to make your school proud and be the best that you can be.”
Shuttlesworth has two other children who were not in attendance – Fred Shuttlesworth Jr., 76, and Carolyn Shuttlesworth, 74. But other family friends and supporters were in attendance.
Massengill and Bester recognized Richard Rucker, a longtime Shuttlesworth family friend, educator and author.
“It’s just such an honor to stand in the school that would not admit Rev. Shuttlesworth and his children in 1957 and to see you all here today is a victory for you and for our country,” Rucker said.
Marie King, the Emmy-nominated producer of a documentary about Shuttlesworth, also was recognized at the event. “I have been blessed to know this family and for them inviting me in,” she said.
The ceremony’s opening words by Emeka Nzeocha, Phillips Academy principal and the program emcee, captured the tone of the event.
“It’s about the efforts of someone like the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth who dedicated and sacrificed his life for us to walk in here free.”
A version of this story originally appeared in The Birmingham Times.
