President Clinton greets the Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth. (Gannett New Service photo) | ZOOM |

        WASHINGTON — Some cities have places where people in period costume speak scripted lines about events of long ago, and they call it “living history.” Cincinnati has its own “living history” of the civil rights movement in 77-year-old Baptist preacher Fred L. Shuttlesworth.

        Monday, after a lifetime of preaching, marching, organizing and struggling for the cause of freedom, the pastor from North Avondale — born in the backwoods of Alabama and tested under fire in the civil rights movement of the 1950s — received from President Clinton the Presidential Citizens Medal.

        He joined Hank Aaron, Muhammad Ali, Archibald Cox, former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and 23 others honored for their accomplishments in public life.

        For the Rev. Mr. Shuttlesworth, it was one of a string of honors that have come to him in recent years from people wanting to recognize him as one of the pioneers of the civil rights movement and as a constant, unwavering voice for freedom and opportunity.

        At an afternoon ceremony in a tent on the White House south lawn, the president recalled how Mr. Shuttlesworth risked his life in the segregated South so blacks could have the same freedoms as whites.

        “Fred Shuttlesworth risked his life so that every American, no matter the color of his or her skin, might live in a nation with dignity, opportunity and equal justice under the law. We thank him for a lifetime of leadership and for an unextinguished spirit,” Mr. Clinton said before he embraced the reverend.

Shuttlesworth (center) with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Ralph Abernathy. (File photo) | ZOOM |

        Although he was proud and moved by the medal and Mr. Clinton's praise, the Rev. Mr. Shuttlesworth still believes the march for social justice moves slowly.

        In a statement, he referred to the “vote miscarriage” of the presidential election, where people reported that some black precincts had a much higher rate of disqualified ballots than predominantly white precincts.

        “Truth compels all of us to admit that the souls of America have not yet been fully redeemed to ensure exact freedom, justice and sustained concern for the poor and needy,” he said.

        “The poor and needy grow more and more, the rich and greedy grow more and more, and the growing conglomerates become more ungoverned and unregulated.”

        The Rev. Abraham Lincoln Woods, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference chapter in Birmingham, Ala., said with some satisfaction that the government's view of the Rev. Mr. Shuttlesworth had changed, even if his old friend had not.

        “Look back at what we came through. Fred was vilified,” Mr. Woods said. “He has moved from a seat of great dishonor to the seat of great honor.”

PREVIOUS STORIES

For more information about the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, go to these previous Enquirer.com reports:   • Profile   • Biography

        State Sen. Mark Mallory, D-Cincinnati, one of those who wrote letters to President Clinton last year urging him to honor the Cincinnati pastor, said the Rev. Mr. Shuttlesworth is an icon.

        “But he is not one of those historical figures who has faded into the background,” Mr. Mallory said. “He is as passionate today as he was back then.”

        “Back then” was the 1950s in Alabama, when the young preacher was one of millions of blacks living under the oppression of the Jim Crow South.

        As pastor of the Bethel Baptist Church in Birmingham, he joined with other young black clergymen — men such as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Ralph Abernathy — in an organized effort to end segregation.

        He almost paid for it with his life.

        On Christmas night 1956, he was at home with his wife and three of his children when 16 sticks of dynamite blew up his house. His wife and children escaped the house without injury; so did the Rev. Mr. Shuttlesworth, although he had to be dug out from under fallen timbers.

        Outside the house, a Birmingham police officer told him how sorry he was the bombing had occurred, saying he “didn't think they would go this far” and advising him to get out of town.

        “You go back and tell your (Ku Klux) Klan brethren that if God can keep me through this, the war is on and I'm here for the duration,” the pastor replied.

        And stay he did, battling for voting rights and equal access to public accommodations, hospitals and lunch counters.

        The night his parsonage was bombed, he formed the Alabama Christian Movement for Civil Rights, which later joined forces with Dr. King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

        In 1957, when he tried to enroll two of his daughters in an all-white Birmingham high school, he and his family were attacked outside the school by a group of whites with chains and baseball bats. His wife was stabbed in the hip.

        The Rev. Mr. Shuttlesworth came to Cincinnati in 1961 to be pastor of the Revelation Baptist Church in the West End. Since 1965, he has been pastor at North Avondale's Greater New Light Baptist Church.

        He is immortalized in Birmingham's Civil Rights Institute Museum with an 8-foot bronze statue at the entrance.

        “I just hope young people will understand the significance of the civil rights movement and of that man's role in it,” Mr. Mallory said. “We all owe him a lot.”

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