A Fire You Can't Put Out: The Civil Rights Life of Birmingham's Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth (Religion & American Culture) - Hardcover

Manis, Andrew M

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0817309683 ISBN 13: 9780817309688

Publisher: University Alabama Press, 1999

Synopsis

This first biography of Fred Shuttlesworth-winner of both the 2000 Lillian Smith Award and the 2001 James F. Sulzby Jr. Award-details the fascinating life of the controversial preacher who led integration efforts in Birmingham with the courage and fervor of a religious crusader.

When Fred Shuttlesworth suffered only a bump on the head in the 1956 bombing of his home, members of his church called it a miracle. Shuttlesworth took it as a sign that God would protect him on the mission that had made him a target that night. Standing in front of his demolished home, Shuttlesworth vigorously renewed his commitment to integrate Birmingham's buses, lunch counters, police force, and parks. The incident transformed him, in the eyes of Birmingham's blacks, from an up-and-coming young minister to a virtual folk hero and, in the view of white Birmingham, from obscurity to rabble-rouser extraordinaire.

From his 1956 founding of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights through the historic demonstrations of 1963, driven by a sense of divine mission, Shuttlesworth pressured Jim Crow restrictions in Birmingham with radically confrontational acts of courage. His intensive campaign pitted him against the staunchly segregationist police commissioner Eugene "Bull" Connor and ultimately brought him to the side of Martin Luther King Jr. and to the inner chambers of the Kennedy White House.

First published in 1999, Andrew Manis's award-winning biography of "one of the nation's most courageous freedom fighters" demonstrates compellingly that Shuttleworth's brand of fiery, outspoken confrontation derived from his prophetic understanding of the pastoral role. Civil rights activism was tantamount to salvation in his understanding of the role of Christian minister.

About this title

About the Author

Andrew M. Manis is an associate professor of history at Middle Georgia State College in Macon, Georgia. He is also the author of Southern Civil Religions in Conflict: Civil Rights and the Culture Wars.

Reviews

An unsung hero of the civil rights movement takes center stage. Manis (Southern Civil Religions in Conflict, not reviewed), religion and southern studies editor at Mercer University Press in Macon, Ga., has written an exhaustive and compelling portrayal of Fred Shuttlesworth, the Birmingham minister who labored in the trenches for years, often risking his life for the greater good of all Alabama citizens. Shuttlesworth helped Martin Luther King with his Montgomery bus boycott and James Farmer with his freedom rides; he even supported sit-ins conducted by students on various southern college campuses in the 1960s. The group he founded, the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR), had been doing battle with Alabama authorities since the mid-1950s. But Shuttlesworth remained in the margins of the movement (and its histories) because of his brash style, his unpolished manner, and his strong, uncompromising will. Manis points out that King commanded the national stage while Shuttlesworth fought to integrate Birmingham's buses, lunch counters, police force, and parks. Some of the books finest chapters examine the strategic battles and confrontations between Shuttlesworth and Birmingham police commissioner Eugene ``Bull'' Connor, which come to a bloody conclusion in 1963, when King's forces finally join with the ACMHR after much prodding by Shuttlesworth. The author takes time out from the movement to cover his subjects preaching and home life. The latter is more often than not depicted as stormy, but this helps humanize Shuttlesworth. A good read for those who think Martin Luther King Jr. carried off the civil rights revolution by himself, as well as for those who know better and seek more details about some of the other men and women involved. (24 b&w photos, not seen) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

In this intriguing work, the first full-scale biography of Birmingham's Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth ("perhaps the most unsung of the many heroes of the American civil rights movement"), religious historian Manis compellingly depicts a dual, combustible life. While providing insights into Shuttleworth's pastoral work and family life, he also offers a lengthy analysis of his subject's civil rights activities. He contends that Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference went to Birmingham on Shuttlesworth's direct invitation and that they owed their success there largely to Shuttlesworth's having organized a large and loyal cadre of demonstrators over seven years. It was Shuttlesworth's tenacity and courage, Manis suggests, that toppled Birmingham's virulent racism. Based largely on interviews with Shuttlesworth, this well-written and -researched book offers valuable new information and insights into a crucial era of Southern and African American history.AEdward G. McCormack, Univ. of Southern Mississippi Gulf Coast Lib., Long Beach
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: University Alabama Press
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0817309683
• ISBN 13: 9780817309688
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 576