Civil Rights Leader, Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth

Rev Shuttlesworth in 2007

"I went to jail 30 or 40 times...for a good thing, trying to make a difference."

Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth

Reverend Fred L. Shuttlesworth, a former truck driver who studied religion at night, became pastor of Bethel Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., in 1953 and soon was an outspoken leader in the fight for racial equality. He survived a 1956 bombing, an assault during a 1957 demonstration, chest injuries when Birmingham authorities turned fire hoses on demonstrators in 1963, and countless arrests. In his 1963 book "Why We Can't Wait," King called Shuttlesworth "one of the nation's the most courageous freedom fighters ... a wiry, energetic and indomitable man." "When God made Bull Connor, one of the real negative forces in this country, He was sure to make Fred Shuttlesworth." Lowery said Wednesday.

"I didn't give a slap happy about what anybody thought about me"

Fred Shuttleworth in 2010

"My church was a beehive," Shuttlesworth once said. "I made the movement. I made the challenge. Birmingham was the citadel of segregation, and the people wanted to march."

Shuttlesworth was born March 18, 1922, near Montgomery and grew up in Birmingham.  As a child, he knew he would either be a minister or a doctor and by 1943, he decided to enter the ministry. He began taking theological courses at night while working as a truck driver and cement worker during the day. He was licensed to preach in 1944 and ordained in 1948.

On December 25, 1956, unknown persons tried to kill Shuttlesworth by placing sixteen sticks of dynamite under his bedroom window. Shuttlesworth somehow escaped unhurt even though his house was heavily damaged. A police officer, who also belonged to the Ku Klux Klan, told Shuttlesworth as he came out of his home, "If I were you I'd get out of town as quick as I could". Shuttlesworth told him to tell the Klan that he was not leaving and "I wasn't saved to run."  The next day, Shuttlesworth led 250 people in a protest of segregation on buses in Birmingham.

In 1957, he was beaten by a mob when he tried to enroll two of his children in an all-white school in Birmingham.  In the early 1960s, Shuttlesworth had invited King back to Birmingham. Televised scenes of police dogs and fire hoses being turned on black marchers, including children, in spring 1963 helped the rest of the nation grasp the depth of racial animosity in the Deep South.  Shuttlesworth participated in the sit-ins against segregated lunch counters in 1960 and took part in the organization and completion of the Freedom Rides in 1961.

Shuttlesworth(Left) with Abernathy and Dr. King in 1963

Shuttlesworth invited SCLC and Dr. King to come to Birmingham in 1963 to lead the campaign to desegregate it through mass demonstrations–what Shuttlesworth called "Project C", the "C" standing for "confrontation". While Shuttlesworth was willing to negotiate with political and business leaders for peaceful abandonment of segregation, he believed, with good reason, that they would not take any steps that they were not forced to take. He suspected their promises could not be trusted on until they acted on them.

One of the 1963 demonstrations he led resulted in Shuttlesworth's being convicted of parading without a permit from the City Commission. On appeals the case reached the US Supreme Court. In its 1969 decision of Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham, the Supreme Court reversed Shuttlesworth's conviction. They determined circumstances indicated that the parade permit was denied not to control traffic, as the state contended, but to censor ideas.

In 1963 Shuttlesworth was set on provoking a crisis that would force the authorities and business leaders to recalculate the cost of segregation. He was helped immeasurably by Eugene "Bull" Connor, the Commissioner of Public Safety and most powerful public official in Birmingham, who used Klan groups to heighten violence against blacks in the city. Even as the business class was beginning to see the end of segregation, Connor was determined to maintain it. Referring to the city's notoriously racist safety commissioner, Shuttlesworth would tell followers, "We're telling ol' 'Bull' Connor right here tonight that we're on the march and we're not going to stop marching until we get our rights."

Shuttleworth Statue, Birmingham Civil Rights Institute

While Connor's direct police tactics intimidated black citizens of Birmingham, they also created a split between Connor and the business leaders. They resented both the damage Connor was doing to Birmingham's image around the world and his high-handed attitude toward them.  According to a May 1963 New York Times profile of Shuttlesworth, Connor responded to the word Shuttlesworth had been injured by the spray of fire hoses by saying: "I'm sorry I missed it. ... I wish they'd carried him away in a hearse."

Similarly, while Connor may have benefited politically in the short run from Shuttlesworth's determined provocations, that also fit Shuttleworth's long-term plans. The televised images of Connor's directing handlers of police dogs to attack unarmed demonstrators and firefighters' using hoses to knock down children had a profound effect on American citizens' view of the civil rights struggle.  

Shuttlesworth's activities were not limited to Birmingham. In 1964 he traveled to St. Augustine, Florida (which he often cited as the place where the civil rights struggle met with the most violent resistance), taking part in marches and widely publicized beach wade-ins that led directly to the passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964. In 1965 Shuttlesworth he was also active in Selma, Alabama, and the march from Selma to Montgomery that led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

In 1978, Shuttlesworth was portrayed by Roger Robinson in the television miniseries King.Shuttlesworth founded the "Shuttlesworth Housing Foundation" in 1988 to assist families who might otherwise be unable to buy their own homes. Shuttlesworth was was a key figure in Spike Lee's 1997 documentary, "4 Little Girls," about the September 1963 Birmingham church bombing that killed four black children. He also gained attention in Diane McWhorter's book "Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution," which won a Pulitzer Prize in 2002. On July 16, 2008, the Birmingham, Alabama, Airport Authority approved changing the name of the Birmingham's airport in honor of Shuttlesworth. On October 27, 2008, the airport was officially changed to Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport. 

Shuttlesworth & Sen Obama

In 2007 Obama pushed Shuttlesworth's wheelchair across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma during a commemoration of the Selma-to-Montgomery voting rights march in which club-swinging troopers and deputies beat and turned back marchers at the Edmund Pettus bridge at Selma on March 7, 1965, an attack that became known as "Bloody Sunday" and helped galvanize national support for the voting rights movement.  In November 2008, Shuttlesworth watched from a hospital bed as Senator Barack Obama was elected the nation's first African-American president. 

On October 5, 2011, Shuttlesworth passed away at the age of 89 in his hometown of Birmingham, Alabama. The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute announced that it intends to include Shuttlesworth's burial site on the Civil Rights History Trail.  

When Rev. Shuttlesworth retired as the pastor of Greater New Light in 2006 at the age of 84, he said in his final sermon:

"The best thing we can do is be a servant of God...

It does good to stand up and serve others."

Read More Here: http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1931471244027395862#editor/target=post;postID=832391902599885979

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/06/us/rev-fred-l-shuttlesworth-civil-rights-leader-dies-at-89.html?pagewanted=all

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Shuttlesworth

MLK's daughter calls for a 'radical revolution of values':

MLK's daughter calls for a 'radical revolution of values':

'via Blog this'

Ten of thousands of people have gathered on a beautiful fall day in Washington to witness the formal dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial that opened in August.
On Deadline will be liveblogging the event.
Update at 9:55 a.m. ET: Martin Luther King III calls for an end of "conservative policies that exclude people." "We must finally get rid of racism."
Update at 9:51 a.m. ET: King III praises the "occupy" economic movement that began on Wall Street, saying, "We must stand up for economic justice."

GALLERY: Photos from the MLK ceremony

Update at 9:48 a.m. ET: Martin Luther King III, King's song, says it is important "not to place too much emphasis on Martin Luther King the idol, and not enough on the ideals of Martin Luther King."

Update at 9:42 a.m. ET: She notes that her father was iactively involved in a poor people's campaign when he died. She says she believe thathe would be supportive now of protests by the poor and the unemployed. "I hear my father say: We must have a radical revolution of values and a reordering of our priorities in this nation. I hear my father say, as we dedicate this monument, we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society, to a person-oriented society."

Update at 9:39 a.m. ET: She also praises her mother, Coretta Scott King, for her work with King, particularly after his death, by continuing to his legacy. Her work, says Bernice , help make "most hated man in America in 1967 to now be one of the most revered and lovedmen in the world so that we might be able to build a monument in his honor. Thanks you, Mama, for your dedication, thank you for your sacrifice."

Update at 9:36 a.m. ET: Rev. Bernice King" says the day "is not just a celebration for African-Americans, but Americans and citizens around the world. No doubt today the world celebrates with us."

Update at 9:34 a.m. ET: Rev. Bernice King, daughter of Martin Luther King Jr., says, "It is a great time of celebration and the entire King family is proud to witness this day."

Update at 9:32 a.m. ET: USA TODAY's Carly Mallenbaum reports that spectators are looking for any sort of shade on the open lawn. Families sit in chairs with built-in canopies. Women sit beneath open umbrellas. One woman fans herself with an innovative device: A hand fan that turns into a straw hat.

Update at 9:29 a.m. ET: King's sister, Christine King Farris, refers to Obama, the first African-American president, and says, "All dreams cane come true and America is a place where you can make it happen."

Update at 9:20 a.m. ET: Gray spends much of his speech noting that residents of Washington D.C .do not, under the Constitution, have the right to vote. He calls on President Obama and Congress to end this "yoke of injustice" and "remove the shackles of oppression." The voting restrictions were put in place when the District of Columbia was created. The district does not have a voting representative in Congress.

Update 9:17 a.m. ET: Mayor Vincent Gray of Washington, D.C., says the memorial is "long overdue."

Update at 9:34 a.m. ET: In the crowd, the Free Martin Luther King Jr Memorial baseball caps fit all sizes of heads on Sunday, reports USA TODAY's Carly Mallenbaum. The white hats provided much-needed shade from a strong morning sun during the celebration event. Ruby Johnson, a 64-year-old retired Walmart employee from Danville,Va., disapproved of the free hat color choice ("I can't wear white after Labor Day!"), but was very much in favor of the MLK Memorial event. "I don't have to ride the back of the bus, because of him," she says of the civil rights leader.



Update at 9:11 a.m. ET: Gwen Ifill, managing editor of PBS' Washington Week addresses the crowd as master of ceremonies.


Original post: The striking weather is in sharp contast to the stormy weather driven by Hurricane Irene that forced a postponement of the ceremonies in August.


President Obama will be among those honoring the legacy of the civil rights leader during the four-hour program. Others who will appear include singer Aretha Franklin and poet Nikki Giovanni, who will poem In the Spirit of Martin.


Thousands of people began gathering at dawn at the memorial, which is not far from the Lincoln Memorial. Organizers say they expect as many as 50,000 people to attend today, USA TODAY's Melanie Eversley reports.


King's sister and two of his children are scheduled to speak. The choir from King's historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta will sing.




"Although our plans have been scaled back, I am confident Sunday's event will be momentous," said Harry Johnson, head of the foundation raising money for the memorial.


He referred to the dedication as a "long-awaited moment in our nation's history."





Update 9:17 a.m. ET: Mayor Vincent Gray of Washington, D.C., says the memorial is "long overdue."


Update at 9:34 a.m. ET: In the crowd, the Free Martin Luther King Jr Memorial baseball caps fit all sizes of heads on Sunday, reports USA TODAY's Carly Mallenbaum. The white hats provided much-needed shade from a strong morning sun during the celebration event. Ruby Johnson, a 64-year-old retired Walmart employee from Danville,Va., disapproved of the free hat color choice ("I can't wear white after Labor Day!"), but was very much in favor of the MLK Memorial event. "I don't have to ride the back of the bus, because of him," she says of the civil rights leader.



Update at 9:11 a.m. ET: Gwen Ifill, managing editor of PBS' Washington Week addresses the crowd as master of ceremonies.


Original post: The striking weather is in sharp contast to the stormy weather driven by Hurricane Irene that forced a postponement of the ceremonies in August.


President Obama will be among those honoring the legacy of the civil rights leader during the four-hour program. Others who will appear include singer Aretha Franklin and poet Nikki Giovanni, who will poem In the Spirit of Martin.


Thousands of people began gathering at dawn at the memorial, which is not far from the Lincoln Memorial. Organizers say they expect as many as 50,000 people to attend today, USA TODAY's Melanie Eversley reports.


King's sister and two of his children are scheduled to speak. The choir from King's historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta will sing.




"Although our plans have been scaled back, I am confident Sunday's event will be momentous," said Harry Johnson, head of the foundation raising money for the memorial.


He referred to the dedication as a "long-awaited moment in our nation's history."

Congratulations to 2011 Nobel Peace Prize Winners, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Leymah Gbowee

The Nobel Peace Prize 2011 was awarded jointly to Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karman "for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women's rights to full participation in peace-building work".

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, 73, is Africa's first democratically elected female president(Liberia). Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is the 24th and current President of Liberia. She served as Minister of Finance under President William Tolbert from 1979 until the 1980 coup d'état, after which she left Liberia and held senior positions at various financial institutions. She placed a very distant second in the 1997 presidential election. Later, she was elected President in the 2005 presidential election and took office on 16 January 2006 as the first and currently the only elected female head of state in Africa.  Read more...

Leymah Roberta Gbowee, 39, is an African peace activist responsible for leading a women's peace movement that brought an end to the Second Liberian Civil War in 2003. This led to the election of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in Liberia, the first African nation with a female president.

An article on Gbowee in O-The Oprah Magazine painted this backdrop:

"The Liberian civil war, which lasted from 1989 to 2003 with only brief interruptions, was the result of economic inequality, a struggle to control natural resources, and deep-rooted rivalries among various ethnic groups, including the descendants of the freed American slaves who founded the country in 1847. The war involved the cynical use of child soldiers, armed with lightweight Kalashnikovs, against the country's civilian population. At the center of it all was Charles Taylor, the ruthless warlord who initiated the first fighting and would eventually serve as Liberian president until he was forced into exile in 2003."

Read more...

Read the press release here:
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2011/

It's Our Art

Watts Riot, by Noah Purifoy 1966 

“Places of Validation, Art and Progression” opened at the California African American Museum on last Thursday September 29, 2011 as part of Pacific Standard Time , the museum-wide collaboration highlighting the birth of the Los Angeles art scene. their newest exhibition on display. This exhibit, on display from September 29, 2011, to April 1, 2012, takes viewers on a connected journey of
personal stories and creativity to discover the people and places throughout Los Angeles that
made it possible to experience the visual expression of African Americans in art during the
1940s – 1980s. 

A video of interviews with the artists plays at the entrance of the gallery and sets the tone for the exhibit.

“It’s our art. It’s not anybody else’s art,” says painter Samella Lewis. “We have to validate ourselves if it’s going to be authentic. White folks tend to only validate in terms of their vision.”

Former civil rights activist, now senior lecturer of both African American studies and communication studies at UCLA, is one of three co-curators for the “Places of Validation, Art & Progression” exhibit. According to Von Blum, “Places of Validation, Art & Progression” aims to explore the history of the African American struggles and attitudes that resulted from being excluded from the mainstream art community in Los Angeles. The works in the exhibition span from figurative to political.

For more information on the California African American Museum visit

www.caamuseum.org or call (213) 744-7432. Admission is always free.

Read the press release.

http://www.intersectionssouthla.org/index.php/story/new_exhibit_opens_at_california_african_american_museum/

http://negroartist.com/negro%20artist/noah%20purifoy/pages/Noah%20Purifoy,%20Watts%20Riots,%201966,%20mixed%20mediums,%2036%20x%2050%20in_jpg.htm

September in Black History

Each month we'll list daily black history notes for the month.  Here's what happened in September in Black History.


On September 6 in Black History...
In 1988 - Lee Roy Young becomes the first African American Texas Ranger in the police force's 165 year history.
 In 1978 - Foxy Brown was born.
 In 1969 - Macy Gray was born.
 In 1967 - Walter E. Washington was named Walter E. Washington commissioner and "unofficial" mayor of Washington, D.C. by President Lyndon Johnson.
 In 1892 - George "Little Chocolate" Dixon betas Jack Skelly in New Orleans to win the world featherweight title. While some African American citizens celebrate for two days, the New Orleans Times-Democrat says, "It is a mistake to match a Negro and a white man ...to bring the races together on any terms of equality even in the prize ring"
In 1826 - John Brown Russwurm became the first Black to graduate college in America on September 6, 1826 at Bowdoin College. However, just 14 days before Edward Jones graduated Amherst College in Massachusetts.
 In 1968, the Kingdom of Swaziland became independent. Swaziland is possibly unique in Africa as being 99% free of political violence. (One political death since independence.)  http://www.welcometoswaziland.com/twpub/pag.cgi?m=history


On September 5 in Black History...
In 1960 - Leopold Sedar Senghor, poet, politician, was elected President of Senegal.  Senghor was a Senegalese poet, politician, and cultural theorist who for two decades served as the first president of Senegal (1960–1980). Senghor was the first African elected as a member of the Académie française. Before independence, he founded the political party called the Senegalese Democratic Bloc. He is regarded by many as one of the most important African intellectuals of the 20th century.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A9opold_S%C3%A9dar_Senghor#Poetry
In 1916, Frank Yerby, novelist, O. Henry short story award winner was born.
1859, Our Nig by Harriet Wilson, the first novel published in the U.S. by an African American woman, is published. It was lost for years until reprinted with a critical essay by African American scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr. in 1983.
In 1899 - J. Ross patented the Bailing Press, Patent No. 632,539.
In 1895 - George Washington Murray was elected to Congress by South Carolina.
In 1846 - Secretary of the American Negro Academy, John W Cromwell was born.
On September 4 in Black History...

In 1960 - Damon Wayans was born. 

 In 1923 - George Washington Carver of Tuskegee Institute received the Spingarn Medal, the NAACP's highest award, for distinguished research in agricultural chemistry.

In 1908 - Richard Wright was born.

In 1865 - Bowie State College was established in Bowie, MD. 

In 1848 - Inventor and engineer, Louis Latimer was born.

In 1981, Beyonce Knowles was born.

On September 3 in Black History...
In 1895, Charles Houston, NAACP leader was born.

1n 1970, The first Congress of African Peoples was held in Atlanta, GA.

In 1990, Jonathan Rodgers became president of CBS's television stations division, making him the highest ranking African American in network television. 

On September 2 in Black History...
In 1884, John Parker patents "Parker Pulverizer", U.S. Patent # 304,552 September 2, 1884 "Follower-Screw for Tobacco Presses." Official Gazette of the USPTO v.28, p.883.

Joseph Hatchet

In 1766 - Abolitionist, inventor, entrepreneur, James Forten was born in Philadelphia, PA.  
In 1975, Joseph W. Hatchett was sworn in as first Black supreme court justice in the South in the twentieth century. An even more significant step in ending racial separation was Hatchett's reelection in 1976. He became the first black justice to be reelected to the Florida Supreme Court. In 1979, Hatchett resigned his position a Florida Supreme Court Justice in order to step into another first. In that year Hatchett became the first black justice admitted to a federal court of appeals in the south when he was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. When the 5th Circuit split in 1981 to form the 5th Circuit and 11th Circuit, Hatchett went with the 11th Circuit. He remained in this position until 1999 and served as Chief Justice of this body from 1996 to 1999.  Hatchett now works as an of counsel attorney with Akerman Senterfitt in Tallahassee, Florida.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_W._Hatchett

Frank Robinson

In 1966 - Professional baseball player, Frank Robinson was named MVP of the American League. He played from 1956–1976, most notably for the Cincinnati Reds and the Baltimore Orioles. He is the only player to win league MVP honors in both the National and American Leagues. He won the Triple crown, was a member of two teams that won the World Series (the 1966 and 1970 Baltimore Orioles), and amassed the fourth-most career home runs at the time of his retirement (he is currently tied for eighth). Robinson was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1982. Robinson was the first African-American hired to serve as manager in Major League history. He managed the Cleveland Indians during the last two years of his playing career, compiling a 186–189 record. He went on to manage the San Francisco Giants, the Baltimore Orioles, and the Montreal Expos/Washington Nationals.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Robinson

On September 1 in Black History...
In 1975 - Gen. Daniel James Jr. was promoted to rank of four-star general and named commander-in-chief of the North American Air Defense Command.

In 1867, Robert Freeman became the first Black person to graduate from Harvard Dental School.

Check out these sites are where I get many of the daily black history info: http://www.blackfacts.com/ http://www.dayinblackhistory.com/
http://www.wikipedia.org