RIP Pastor Fred Shuttlesworth

Yesterday, a great person passed away. No, not Steve Jobs, though he was a great person in a different way. No, this great person is not being remembered with all the fanfare of Steve Jobs, but here in Birmingham, he had a great impact several decades ago. His name was Freddie Lee Shuttlesworth. Later when he became a pastor, he shortened that to Pastor Fred Lee Shuttlesworth. He first pastored in Selma, Alabama.

But, it was later, when he pastored in Birmingham, AL that he became known. He began to petition the city council for simple things, things that you would take for granted nowadays, but in those days racism reigned supreme. He petitioned for something as simple as having some of the streets in black areas paved. After the Supreme Court ruling ending segregated schools, he petitioned for the City Council to hire black policemen.

By 1956 the city’s response was to take out an injunction against the black leaders in this area. I guess they were getting too uppity because later that year his house is bombed. In 1957 he is nearly beaten to death when he attempts to escort his daughter to enroll in Philips High School. In 1963, he invites the Christian Leadership Conference and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to Birmingham. Finally in 1963, amidst the first civil rights marches, he escorts the first black students to finally begin to integrate the Birmingham schools, eight years after the Supreme Court ruled that such segregation is unconstitutional. Days later the 16th Street Baptist Church is bombed and the era of the great civil rights marches begins. In 1965 he participates in the famous Selma to Montgomery Voting Rights March.

Years later the city recognized his legacy. In 2008, the airport at Birmingham is renamed as the Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport. The man who was a bombed and beaten pariah has become one of the heroes of the city.

Sadly, he lived to see the return of some of what he fought against. He lived to see people shouting, “let them die,”  and “kill them” in the middle of a TV presidential debate. He lived to see his beloved Alabama become a state in which a person could violate the law by giving a car ride to an illegal immigrant. I suspect that had he been stronger, he would have been out in his car for the “knowingly give an illegal a ride day” that is being planned for sometime in the near future here in Alabama. And, he would have dragged the TV cameras with him while he opened the car door in front of a policeman, daring him to arrest him for deliberately violating the law.

Yes, a great man has died, a conscience for this city. May we all remember him and his example. As for myself, who knows. I may just yet deliberately open the door in front of a policeman in the future in order to knowingly give an illegal immigrant a ride. It would be a good way to remember his memory.