Birmingham Revolutionaries: The Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights
edited by Marjorie L. White and Andrew Manis
Outside of the city of Birmingham, remarkably few people know the story of Fred Shuttlesworth, the fiery minister who was at the forefront of efforts to desegregate public accommodations from schools to bus terminals and more. Before Martin Luther King came to Birmingham — at Shuttlesworth’s invitation – to lead a campaign for freedom now well known as key to the civil rights movement, Shuttlesworth was a thorn in the side of Public Safety Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor, and a frequent target of white supremacist violence, from beatings to bombings. And beyond Shuttlesworth, there were more, many more Birmingham revolutionaries striving to dismantle a system of racial oppression which made Birmingham what King called “the most segregated” city in the country. The book features incisive research by scholars and veterans of the movement brought together to help make the case for the critical importance of the work by the ACMHR – the organization Shuttlesworth formed when Alabama outlawed the NAACP.
