He doesn't much like leaving time on the meter.

        Parking meters, too, especially the one outside Cincinnati City Hall on Wednesday.

The Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth speaks during at City Hall Wednesday, where he was presented with a proclamation. (Brandi Stafford photo) | ZOOM |

        The Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, who will be honored today with a birthday party befitting one of the nation's most prominent civil-rights leaders, turns 80 on Monday.

        “My mom died at 95 in '95,” he says. “I don't despair.”

        So begins a wide-ranging conversation in which he holds forth on:

        Baseball, the South, dying, TV, parking meters, parental discipline, the 2000 election, Sept. 11, Bill Cunningham, driving on a street named after him, aging, Republicans, rap music and reasons for optimism.

        The last one is explained easily enough.

        Asked what lessons he wants to teach his great-grandkids, his answer focuses — instead — on what he learns from them.

        Three hours in the life of the man:

        12:30 p.m.: Stained glass around his front door casts blue and yellow shadows on the hardwood floor of the modest brick home in Roselawn. On the coffee table, pictures of him with then-President Clinton.

Martin Luther King Jr. and Rev. Shuttlesworth marched together in Birmingham, Ala. in 1963.

        The reverend leans back on his couch. “Well, I appreciate the recognition, that some people, a few at least, tried to obey God's dictum, to live committed lives.”

        He was a founding member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., with whom he marched into history.

        12:44: A woman who has coordinated his recent appearances phones. He says “awright” a couple of times, grabs a pen and writes on the back of an envelope: Thurs 10 a.m., arrive 9:50. WCIN, Courtis Fuller. Fri noon, Tracey live.”

        12:49: “It's nice to look at what I, and others, did in the South,” he says. “But look at the country.”

        He bemoans America's balance of wealth.

        1:01: He motions to a book resting on the arm of the couch, Diane McWhorter's Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama — The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution. Winner of the Southern Book Critics Award for nonfiction, it's about the white Birmingham native's family, and its connections to the Ku Klux Klan and the 1963 bombing of Birmingham's Sixteenth Street Baptist Church.

        “People say to me, you could justifiably hate white folks. I say, my being in the ministry helped me to look back and say, "What does God want me to do now?' And anybody can do that.”

        1:07: On social change: “If white people were ready for freedom, I think it would happen quickly.”

        1:13: On the war in Afghanistan: “We got smart bombs and dumb operators. I hope America was humbled by the twin towers.”

        On terrorism: “Police profiling is a form of terror. What happened with Enron, is terror. (In the Bible) Paul called that "wickedness in high places.'”

        1:37: He pulls his cream-colored Lincoln Town Car; Bill Cunningham is on WLW-700. The subject is the boycott. “WLW is mostly right-wing stuff. This is one of the most right-wingers talkin' now.”

        1:47: At a parking meter on Plum Street, , he puts in coins for an hour and 26 minutes. “I know,” he says, “I'm not going to take that long.” He wants to do this ceremony thing first because he has no intention of sitting through the meeting.

        2:13: Mayor Charlie Luken unexpectedly asks the reverend to do the opening prayer. “Heavenly father, we come before you humbly,” he begins.

        2:16: Paul Booth presents Proclamation No. R/19-2002 to the reverend honoring his birthday and years in public service, including “50 or 60 years in the ministry.”

FRED SHUTTLESWORTH

March 18, 1922: Born in Montgomery County, Ala., the oldest of nine children     1944: Licensed to preach, becomes minister at Corinthian Baptist Church, Mobile, Ala.     1952: Earns bachelor's degree in English, Alabama State University, Montgomery, Ala.     1956: His home is firebombed on Christmas Eve. He, his wife, Ruby, and children survive.     1961: Moves his family to Cincinnati, becomes pastor at Revelation Baptist Church in the West End.     1965: Walks beside the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during the Bloody Sunday March on March 7, 1965, from Birmingham to Selma.     1966: Organized establishment of Greater New Light Baptist Church, North Avondale.     1971: His wife, Ruby, dies. They had separated in 1969, after 28 years and four children.     1992: The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute opens. A statue of the reverend greets visitors at the front door. The inscription reads: “Birmingham's Civil Rights Freedom Fighter: With singular courage he fired the imagination and raised the hopes of an oppressed people.”     2000: Named a Great Living Cincinnatian, along with politician Bobbie Sterne and business executive Charles Mechem     2001: President Clinton presents him with the Presidential Citizens Medal.     Today: Honored at 80.

IF YOU GO

• What: Dinner to celebrate the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth's 80th birthday.     • When: Reception, 6:30 p.m. today; dinner follows at 7:30 p.m.     • Where: Millennium Hotel, 150 W. Fifth St.     • Cost: $35 per person. Tickets available at the door.     • Information: 641-0427 or 681-4233

        “58,” the reverend says.

        Mr. Luken: “For the young people here, when you look in the books on the civil rights movement, you see Rev. Shuttlesworth.”

        He does a quick TV news interview in the hallway, and returns to his parking meter with 49 minutes remaining on it.

        2:26: “I'm always optimistic,” he says on the way to his Greater New Light Baptist Church in North Avondale. “I don't think that because today is a bad day tomorrow can't be better.”

        Of today's celebration, he says, “I hope it has meaning to children. You can take a stand. One life can make a difference.”

        2:34: On sports: “I go to baseball games about twice a year. Don't care too much for basketball, it's too fast.”

        On TV: “Most is accidental, I flip the dial and come upon it. I don't like the shoot-'em-ups. I like a plot, old-fashioned movies.”

        On rap music: “Sometimes I wonder the value of it but nowadays, we go for the profit of it.”

        2:37: He makes a left onto Fred Shuttlesworth Circle in North Avondale, but doesn't pause to reflect. “I don't think about it,” he says. “That's the truth, y'know.”

        2:40: A church secretary greets him. In what will be a trophy room, boxes and tabletops brim with awards, paintings, gifts, plaques, hundreds in all. There's a T-shirt from the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.

        3:07: Heading north on Reading Road, he says of the 2000 presidential election: “Bush is a court-appointed president. I don't think he won but he's our president, we can only have one.”

        Of Republicans: “There are a few good Republicans now and then, scattered about. I don't agree with their version of conservatism.”

        3:17: Arriving home, , it's quiet. Shafts of sunlight streak across the framed family photos.

        He needs to rest. He has to be back at the church by 5:30.

        Asked for the topic of his choice, he brings up 29: his 14 grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren.

        3:28: He's not so tired anymore. “You can't get old being around them,” he says.
       

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